Page 16 of Bound
She was being ridiculous.
It did not change that she would rather run back to Thorn, to hide away until he realised his mistake and flew away again.
His head turned, and there was no mistaking when he caught sight of her—not when his entire body turned, so he might face her properly.
Not a stranger.
The woodcutter.
4. Pursue
She was harder to find than he’d expected.
He’d begun with the trails, twining through the forests. But they were not his forests, and he knew them no better than any other stretch of landscape beyond the city walls. He’d found the great swathes of crops, thriving from the knowledge of irrigation from across the sea. The workers that looked at him with curiosity as they moved between the tidy rows.
But there was no Wren. With her furrowed brow and trepidation.
Perhaps he should have been embarrassed to have to make such enquiries at all. What other man lost his mate the instant he’d discovered her? But upon his fifth, he could not conjure even a semblance of self-consciousness, boldly approaching and asking any that had a moment to spare if they knew of her.
But concern took its place. Just how far removed was she? From the security that came with numbers, of the little conveniences of steady food, clean water.
Another round of failures. Of pitying looks as they waved him off, and a few wished him well.
“Stranger, wait,” one of them called. A rough sort, who did not take adequate care with the grooming of his wings, his skin much used to the unfiltered light of the suns. “There is someone. Or a couple of someones. North of here, about five spans?” He glanced at the others in the group, recognition coming slowly.
“Oh. Them. Nudge a little eastward, I’d say.”
Perhaps Braum should have enquired why they knew of the place. Why they looked so awkward to speak of it, already turning back to their tasks and leaving him with thoughts of who precisely might make up them.
She was a half-blood. Her neighbouring stall-keep had told him that with great, scandalous relish. Perhaps that meant she had...
Not a mate. Because that title was reserved solely for him. Even his bones cried out at the prospect of it, the wrongness of imagining her with a life already built. A... a love that was not him.
Perhaps it wasn’t her at all, and the worry was for nothing.
His sister had been patient with him. As he paced and couldn’t seem to get the word out of his unwilling throat.
Until at last she’d stood, grabbed hold of his arms and gripped him firmly. “You’re going to damage my carpets,” she complained, her eyes pointedly drifting downward. The rugs might have been fine once, but with two fledglings now in their home, they could use a thorough beating.
The rugs.
Not his sister’s children.
That liked to climb all over him and tug at his wings until Kessa intervened with the stern voice reserved solely for children. But she never failed to kiss each cheek so they might know all was well again.
She was a good mother. Like their mother. Warm and kind, but with the brisk sort of efficiency that kept the household together.
The heart of their home.
And he loved her. Not in the way her children adored her and her husband treated her almost reverently. But in the begrudging way between brothers and sisters, where touches were often playful shoves rather than tight hugs. Where compliments were buried beneath a lifetime of teases.
So he’d told her.
Couldn’t look at her while he was doing it, but he was a coward like that. There were sisters that might squeal. Ones that might gloat that she’d been right all along and there was a woman for him, despite his insistence in recent years to the contrary.
But Kessa ducked her head. Caught his eye. Smiled at him gently. “You don’t seem happy about it,” she observed with that infuriating way of knowing that must simply have come from too many years spent in the same household with her. “I’d hate to think that Garran had the same look on his face the day he met me.”
His mouth twisted. Maybe it was an attempt at a smile. Maybe it was a grimace because he remembered that day all too well. The way they beamed at one another. How they did not seem able to part long enough for their fingers to stop twining together.