Page 142 of Bound

“About you,” he amended. “About us.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “No. I just... I keep thinking about what you said, before. About... mates loving the same people.”

He shifted, but only slightly. “You’re under no obligation to love my sister, Wren. She is... I will, but there is a lifetime of enduring her as well, and...”

She reached out and squeezed his arm gently. “Your sister is lovely,” Wren murmured. “I was trying to imagine keeping you here to myself for always. I could. I think you’d let me. But that’s...” she huffed and shook her head. “What a wretch that would make me. To refuse to have family because it scares me.”

His heart raced, and he settled his hand over hers on his arm. “There is no rush,” he reminded her. “They’ll keep. Until you’re ready.” He brought her hand to his mouth and placed a kiss to the back of her fingers. Then her palm. “I did. I think that’s turned out all right.”

She sighed. And he might have thought her troubled, except that she brought her head to rest against his shoulder, and had the chairs always been so close together? He was certain they hadn’t been. Which meant...

He liked what it meant.

???

Baum slept deeply every night. It was so different from the stilted, pacing nights that inevitably led to hours of circling over this very plot of land.

This was far superior. A comfortable cot, the embers of a friendly fire. A shared cup of tea before bed. He’d even grown used to Merryweather’s occasional interruptions, as she pushed and nudged for more space beside him—taking up far more space than her body possibly should have.

He felt that now, half-asleep and if he grumbled, it was only because sleep was so very nice here in this house. Under this roof. With the company he kept.

Except Merryweather was persistent, nudging at his shoulder and then his arm, and he turned his head, ready to reprimand that breakfast was hours away yet, and surely Wren did not give meals at this time of night and...

“Braum.”

His eyes flew open. He made to sit up, his eyes already drifting over whatever parts of her he could, certain something must be wrong. She did not ask him for anything frivolously, and if she felt the need to wake him, then...

She pushed harder at his shoulder. “Relax.”

He brushed a hand over his face, suddenly wondering if this was a dream. Although that Wren came to him full of warm smiles and soft sighs, not a mouth pressed into a fine line of determination.

She had a quilt wrapped about her, and there was a pillow. Why did she have a pillow?

To smother him?

The thought settled poorly, because he could better believe that was the reason than that she...

Was what?

If this was a seduction, she was as poor at attempting it as he was at receiving it.

“Wren, what—”

“I want my kitchen back,” Wren declared, patting his shoulder in a way that he supposed was meant to be soothing, but was awkward and only added to the absurdity of the situation.

“No more tripping over cots and pretending I’m as bad off as I was. I’m mending. We both know it. And if that means moving back upstairs, which it does, and if you won’t go until I’m up there with you, then...”

A pillow was pushed next to his own. And it was only a cot, meant for a rather large woodcutter and not the woodcutter and his mate. The injured one that he was tending, not... not one that was soft and warm and stretching out beside him. Still on her side, mindful of her wing, and should he ask her if she needed water before going back to sleep?

“And because I’m a kindly person, I will tell you.” She turned over her shoulder, her expression as serious as it ever was. “This is a test. To see if... if I’m safe next to you. Last time didn’t turn out so well so...” There were not tears, but there was a hitch to her breathing that suggested she was not quite as bold and certain of herself as she pretended to be. “If we can have just a bath, can there just be sleep as well?”

He wanted to curl himself around her. To tuck her close and kiss her hair and promise her that no one would ever impose upon her again—least of all him.

But he couldn’t purge her past experience with hopes and affection. She was trusting him. Trusting him not to.

A test on her kitchen floor. Before they moved to her room. Before they made it to their room.

He grasped her hand in the dim of the room. Squeezed it gently.