Page 54 of Bound
“I think you have that backward,” she grumbled, still feeling somehow outside herself. But trying to come back. With every stroke down Merry’s back, a little more real, a little more centred. “She minds me.”
A flick of Merryweather’s long tail in agreement, and it was enough to pull the slightest of smiles from Wren’s lips.
“I think Merryweather makes my case for me,” Braum continued after another pause. She could feel his attention flicker between the two of them before he leaned forward ever so slightly. “Leptus do not domesticate easily—if they do at all. Yet she stays for your tea and your biscuits. And she keeps your barn clear of pests in return. Can you not think of me like one of your wild creatures?” His tone suggested he was partly jesting, but there was an undercurrent of entreaty that caused her to frown.
“She cares nothing for tea or for biscuits. Only the cream that I did not think to offer you.”
A lie. She had. She simply hadn’t bothered to fetch more from the springhouse.
“Regardless,” Braum pressed, his right hand coming to rest on the table. “I do not...” He paused, his mouth coming to a firm line. “I will not pretend to know why you are so suspicious of me. Of my intentions. But I can promise you, I only...” She did not begrudge his stumbling speech. The way he scowled down at his mug, the way his hand curled into a fist as he wrestled with his own thoughts.
It was much the same with her, although there was rarely anyone to see it.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he settled on at last. Forcing his eyes up to meet hers.
She could tell that he meant it.
For the moment.
An excellent liar, if he proved to be one.
But that was the trouble, wasn’t it? Wren had known too few people. Did not know when sincerity was feigned. Did not know when a man coaxed and sweetened his words, only to get a woman to yield, to trust and then...
She smiled at him sadly. “I wish that was true.”
For a moment, there was dismay. Then his expression smoothed, and he sat back in his chair, his wings tucked neatly behind his back as he rested both hands upon his mug once more. “Is there...” He cleared his throat. “Is there something I might do to...” A scowl. “Is there something I have done to make you believe me false?”
Her fingernail tapped uneasily against the side of her mug. “I do not mean it so personally,” Wren offered. She hoped it was a balm. Knew that it would not be. “I do not mean to be unfair. I... I should like to be your friend, I think. If I knew how to have one. But... experience, you know? It is a more than adequate teacher. And I’d rather not have to learn those lessons again.”
He said nothing for a long while.
“Do you speak of your parents? Of their pairing?”
She despised when people were bold enough at the market to make enquiries. To push for little sordid details. They’d stopped after a time. When the novelty of her presence faded. Most were not even directed to her—instead posed to her mother under the guise of friendliness, their eyes too bright, too interested in the little girl at her feet, with wings that were most assuredly deformed.
Her father hated when she spoke of them in such a way. They were perfect in his eyes, if small. But to her...
The fusion of their kinds had not been a gentle thing. There had been no effortless combination that left Wren all the better for their heritage.
Old resentment flared, and she leaned away from him, biting at her cheek until she was certain she had some measure over her temper.
It was not a wrong assumption.
But she felt a strange defensiveness overwhelm her. For as angry as she had been at him, as bitter as she’d been for a bond that was apparently outside of his control...
She did not tolerate others speaking poorly of him.
Thinking he was awful. That he’d used her mother, that he’d abandoned her. He... hadn’t.
And he had.
A tangle of right and wrong, of biology and choice and...
She was not a regret for either of them.
No one else seemed willing to accept that.
Did friends talk about such things?