Page 144 of Bound
“Tell me about them.”
He settled onto his back next to her.
And if he had objections to morning touches and squeezed shoulders and no promises of anything more, he gave no voice to it.
???
“We do not have to go.”
Wren did not huff. But she might have wanted to.
She did not roll her eyes, but it was a very near thing.
“We should just wait for a market day. Not make another trip. Consolidate your outings.” He nodded to himself, doing the arguing for her. Arguments she hadn’t made and wouldn’t have.
She took his hand.
Brought it to her hip. The one that had been blackened and swollen and then sickly and green, and though she could faintly make out where the mark had been, it was no longer tender in the least.
“What am I?” she asked, trying for patient. Truly. Yet there was a tinge of perhaps something that might have been considered by some to be impatient.
His eyes brightened. “My mate.”
She did roll her eyes then. “Other than that. I am...”
He swallowed. “Feeling better.”
Not just feeling better. Was better. Mostly. Her wing was stiff and awkward, but she’d begun to go without the bandages, so she might try to build some strength back into it. For a true-born Harquil, a broken wing was a tragedy. Not unheard of, to be sure, but something to be treated with the utmost care. Hers were ornamental, mostly. He needn’t fret as he did, pretending her life would change so very drastically if it healed poorly.
“Yes,” Wren agreed. “And when you asked to attend the festival, I said I would. So we’re going.”
The animals were attended to. Merryweather had been bribed with an early supper.
He’d even procured a cart and hesper so they would not have to walk the whole way.
One that watched Calliope with a little too much interest.
Braum said nothing for a moment, one hand still on her hip, the other coming to rest on her shoulder. “But it’s just... for me.”
Her brow furrowed. “And?”
He caught her glance and frowned. “And that troubles me. You should not be making sacrifices. I should not be asking you to do what you do not want to do. In any regard.”
He was going to step back from her. She did not know how she could tell—something in his eyes, the set of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. But she knew.
And so she grabbed hold of his shirt and opened her mouth to make a retort, and quickly changed her mind.
Perhaps that was part of his blood. Of mating and bonding and things she couldn’t possibly understand.
It was afternoon. The day was thick with clouds, but there was no rain as of yet. But it would be cold, and they needed to dress warmly—most especially once the second sun set, and they were out in the dark.
“Wait here,” she declared, patting his chest lightly before she hurried up to their room. He thought she’d find it difficult to think of it as such, but it had been shared with Merryweather for a long while now. Perhaps he was bigger and took up more space in her bed, but it was... nice.
And now that it had happened, she couldn’t quite imagine him out of it again.
Her skills were modest. The craft itself was from her mother’s people, passed down from her grandmother. Or so Mama had said. Wren had struggled for an age to learn even the most basic of stitches, and what more advanced she’d learned, she had no one to ask for help when she fumbled and forgot.
It meant it wasn’t as fine as she might have liked. Meant that she’d ripped out many rows and started anew, none of it good enough. Not as a thank you, and certainly not as any sort of recompense for all he’d done for her. For them.