Page 129 of Bound

Hating her father for being willing to go.

Hating her mother for leaving the family she claimed lived on a planet far away.

No. That wasn’t true. She’d never done that. Been angry, perhaps. When life was difficult and Mama would talk of tricks and tools that made life seem so easy.

But Wren’s life was gardening and mucking and calluses on her palms.

And rocking on porches and drinking hot tea, and cuddling up with Merryweather with much-loved books.

She’d really thought to complain?

Foolish, selfish girl.

Cold, heartless woman.

Braum had never said those things. He’d never criticised her for... anything.

He’d been angry on her behalf, for wrongs done. He’d been kind and faithful and so very patient while she...

He had tears in his eyes.

As he crumpled slightly, his large frame falling forward, his head resting on her side as he hid himself away, his body tight with strain as he wrestled with...

“You mean it?” he asked, his voice hoarse and so unlike him it was almost startling.

How much had he held back, on her behalf? Never wanting to frighten her, never wanting to damage what small ground she’d given him to work with.

Her heart ached. Her throat too. And her wing, and her hip, and so many other little parts of her that were just... her.

Because... because her mate hurt.

She’d hurt him. Hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t been able to trust him, stranger that he was. But she could feel sorry for it now. Now that he was her friend, and her...

Her mate.

Chosen. By her.

A little too slow. A little too late. With a great deal too much fight on her part.

She moved her hand and laid it on top of his head, her fingers going through the waves of his hair she’d spent far too much time looking at. Wondering at its texture, if he combed it each night as she did, or if he simply left it alone aside from the fingers that moved through it in frustration.

Frustration with her.

“I mean it,” she murmured, watching his shoulders stiffen. Relax. Over and over. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, finding it was just as true as it had been the first time. “I see you now.”

Not in the same way. Not in the knowing he claimed to have felt from that very first moment. But in the quiet familiarity. The warmth she experienced each time she’d glance out her window and find him there. He’d become a fixture of her home just as assuredly had all her other creatures. He’d asked Merry that, hadn’t he? What it would take to be adopted? To be hers.

It should have been shameful, his willingness to be thought a pet or a worker on her little farm. But that was Braum. He’d sleep in the stable, if that’s all she would allow. Because... he put her first.

“Braum,” she murmured, fingers still skimming through her hair, finding it novel and new and intimate. Which should have been frightening, and yet... wasn’t.

He tilted his head ever so slightly to indicate he was listening, but he wasn’t ready to move. To face her. Let him have his tears, just as he allowed her so often to have hers. “You needn’t sleep in the stable.”

Braum grew very still.

“We can... work out the rest. When I’m feeling better. I don’t... I’m not saying I’m ready for...” Her face was hot and her words were stilted and stuttering, but she’d have things clear between them. For once. “Well, you know what for. But I’ll not sleep at night thinking of you out in the stable. Calliope and Temperance might get ideas.” Why were the words so hard to get out when they were so clear in her mind? “They’ll have to see about seducing their own mates. I’ve just got mine.”

Her fingers curled about his ear, and he shuddered.