Page 58 of Bound

“You’re a guest,” Wren continued, already turning to the kettle to pour warm water over the lot of dishes.

A guest.

It shouldn’t hurt, yet it did.

That was all.

Perhaps a little nearer to a friend than he had been the day before, but even that was wholly inadequate for what he felt for her.

But it was a start. He would cling to that. When he left again. When he coaxed himself away from flying over her dwelling until his shoulders ached, his wings protested. When he climbed back into his bed and pretended he was near her, that everything was well and he could breathe after all.

All lies. The whole of it.

Every night was becoming an agony. It was enough that he almost—almost—missed the time before he knew her. When he was content with his profession and his role as mischief-maker with his sister’s children. To long days spent flying amongst his trees, trimming and feeding and checking meticulously for signs of blight.

“And if I told you that guests often did the washing up before returning home? A token of gratitude for the host?”

Her eyes narrowed. She plucked at her wrist, her thumb, and then, inevitably, her braid. “Is that true?” she entreated, her voice too soft, too high. This was not a teasing matter.

He could lie. Could tell her any manner of things in order to coax her into allowing him to care for her.

But she’d spoken truly. She would not forgive him if he spoke of her secrets to anyone. And doubtlessly, she would feel quite the same if she learned that he’d lied about his people’s customs.

He could pretend it was for her own good. Could conjure all sorts of excuses if it allowed him to linger, to relieve some of the little chores that took up the whole of her days.

But he couldn’t.

Not if he wanted her trust.

“In some houses, maybe,” Braum answered honestly. “Perhaps in this one?” He tried to smile, but he knew her answer already, the rebuff that would come just as certainly as her insistence on visiting his oil vendor.

He’d not given the name.

Instead, he’d insisted that he would escort her the next market day.

She’d wanted to argue. He was well used to the narrowing of her eyes, the sharp intake of breath as her reactions came before she’d even formulated the words to her objection. But he’d leaned forward. Captured her eyes as best as he was able. “If you want to learn,” he reminded her as gently as he could. “Then you should be taught as I was. I was not given a slip of paper and vague directions and told to make purchases.” He leaned back, satisfied at her chastened expression. “Unless you think yourself a far superior student.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she dropped his gaze.

He wished the bond would share her thoughts. That he was gifted more than the few words she’d give to him, and little motions to betray her feelings when she tried to keep them so carefully hidden away.

But it worked in no such mystical way. An imperative. A knowing. But her thoughts, her feelings, those were her own. To share or keep secret at will.

He should have said something about her parents. About her. But everything fell short of being enough. There was no comfort he could give that did not also disparage in some way. To say her father was wrong, that he should have waited for his mate as was intended would have meant...

No Wren.

No pastures with her menagerie of half-wild creatures.

But he ached for her. To have been set aside—no matter how she claimed that her father had done nothing of the sort. He felt for the woman he’d never meet. That had raised his bond-mate and taught her how to survive so well on her own.

There was the craving again. To reach out and touch. To rest his hands upon her shoulders, hunched as they were as she scrubbed at their mugs, ignoring his offer to help.

She would evict him for the presumption.

So he curled his hands inward, forced his jaw to relax. To grab hold of a towel resting upon the counter and reach for the plate she’d placed on the drying rack.

“Guests may dry, surely,” he posed, quirking a brow at her open mouth. Always with the arguments.