Page 41 of Bound

Her father had been devoted to them. Had sworn to go with her, if that’s what it meant to remain together and...

How often had her mother wished she’d made a different choice? If they’d gone and remained a family, in foreign lands with none to help them.

She swallowed thickly and needed a sip of milk to get it down at all.

“And your mother?” he asked, so gently that she could not even begrudge him the query.

Even if it meant a lump settled in her throat. When she could not help but look at the biscuits that were her mother’s favoured recipe with an ache so real she was certain a wound had opened anew.

“She died. A few years back. I do not know why.”

She ignored the rest of her meal. Reached for the biscuit instead and allowed its sweetness to comfort her. A taste of home. Of being a girl again. When life was hard, but shared.

“I am sorry.”

It was not a trite offering. Something that good manners imprinted as a response, but meant.

Felt.

She nodded, strangely grateful for it. Firen had been much the same. That first, horrible venture into the market... after. When she’d asked in her usual bright manner where her mother was, and Wren could not speak the words.

“Thank you,” she murmured, playing with a crumb of biscuit. “I miss her. Every day.”

She did not know why she said that. Confessed it. He was too easy to talk to. A quiet presence that coaxed without pressing. That was content to sit, to think. To watch the beauty of the fields with no chatter.

She liked it. More than she cared to admit to herself.

“And your father...”

She might have known that was coming. “He lives in the city, too. With his... with his mate.”

There. It was not precisely a secret. But the rumours and gossip had long ago died away, so perhaps they were not as willing to share it as they once were.

He shifted. Turned so he could look at her. She waited for the lecture. About mates and the wrong that had produced... her.

And she would hate him for it.

Would thank him for his work and then walk back into the house and not care to speak to him again.

Which might have been for the better. That way, she would miss nothing when he’d gone away again.

Wouldn’t miss him.

She did not know him. Perhaps he was not a stranger any longer, but they were not friends. Acquaintances. She might allow that.

“I am sorry,” he repeated. Just as genuinely.

And she shrugged because... to do anything else would mean appearing just as weak as she suddenly felt, and that was not something she wanted exposed to anyone. Let alone him.

“I am not complaining,” she managed, because that was true as well. It might be unfortunate. Might be an abomination to some and yet...

It was her family.

Her parents had not regretted it. She would not either.

He hummed, just a little. A quiet argument that... perhaps she should be.

She shrugged again, because there was nothing else to say.