Page 25 of Bound

She tugged at her braid. Turned back to look at Thorn once. Wondered if it would be possible to simply evict the woodcutter and allow him to take his guilt and his sense of honour back to wherever he’d come from and leave her be.

Thorn was ignoring her. It was Merryweather that twined about her legs, pushing at them and curving her tail so the wide legs of her overalls tucked closer to her calf.

She glanced back at the man, half expecting him to be loading up his wood to take his cart and be done with her.

Why did her stomach have to tighten so?

But he wasn’t leaving. Instead, he was back to unloading his cart, his mouth pulled into a tight line that showed every bit of his irritation.

Which shouldn’t bother her in the least. She only wanted matters to be clear between them. A clear contract of what precisely her supposed injuries were worth.

She reached down and picked up Merryweather. She did not have a particular affinity for being held, but she allowed it occasionally. Her forelegs perched over Wren’s shoulders as she surveyed the yard from this new perspective, uncaring that Wren was using her for comfort.

She pressed her face into Merryweather’s soft side, her voice soft. “This is different, right? You’d tell me if it was like last time?”

Merryweather did not answer. Possibly because the last time had very little comparative impact on her life and wellbeing, even if Wren could not say the same.

She wriggled. Jumped down without a backward glance toward Wren, strutting purposefully back toward the barn for her nap.

Wren sighed. Closed her eyes briefly before mustering her courage. Her steps were slow and her will toward negotiating a solid agreement between them waned in the face of his obvious displeasure. She’d insulted him, somehow. Which hadn’t been her intent and yet...

“I must see the cart back,” he told her. Without looking at her. It bothered her more than it should have. “Fair morning,” he repeated from earlier, although it did not sound the same as it had.

So she nodded, not at all certain he would return at all, and she wondered how long it should be before she hired a cart of her own to take the wood back to the market. Not to sell—she was not as dishonourable as that. But she would see it returned.

He did not have to pull himself up onto the tall seat of the cart. His wings made it an easy distance—graceful even, despite his size.

Her throat burned.

Wondered if she should make some sort of goodbye.

But before she could decide, he made a sound low in his throat, and the hesperlumbered back toward woods.

There was no true path, and she wondered how long he might actually sit before he had to take care of the brush and brambles to make way.

Not her business. Not her concern.

Or so she told herself before she followed Merryweather back into the barn, Temperance and Calliope bellowing all the while that she was late.

???

To release them meant she’d given up on him. That she’d ruined her chances of his help.

To keep them in meant she trusted him to come back.

Which she didn’t.

They looked at her expectantly, and she sighed, rubbing at Calliope’s nose for a moment while she warred with indecision.

“We’ll go out,” she declared, her hand on the bolt to the stall. “But no complaining if you’re banished to the other pasture. And no bullying Thorn either.”

They both ignored her, pushing past her as they lumbered toward their grazing spots.

Which left her to muck out stalls and worry and try to turn her thoughts back where they belonged.

All while Merryweather supervised from her perch in the hayloft.

The suns drew higher, and she took the milk pails with her as she returned to the house. It wasn’t her fault that her attention drifted to the pile of lumber. Wasn’t her fault either that she felt a moment’s disappointment that he hadn’t yet returned.