Page 69 of Bound

It had done no wrong. It was just stone and towers and families and trade and those were good things, weren’t they?

He touched her back. The place between her wings that itched so often, and she did not allow herself to shove away from him. Not when... not when there was a modicum of comfort in it, gently pulling her back from the despair that threatened to take hold. “Let me take you home,” he asked again. “Please.”

Her breath caught.

“I’ll be fine.”

The words came out, but they sounded terribly far away. As if spoken from someone else entirely rather than her own lips. She didn’t believe them, not in the least. She would go, that much was certain. Twine back through paths and trails and shed this day as she went.

He sighed deeply. His hand fell away. “I do not believe you.”

She shrugged. Because... he was right not to. She did not trust herself, but she knew the way home. And sheer stubbornness could get her far, even in her current state. “As is your right.”

“Wren,” he tried again, this time more firmly. And this time, he touched her shoulders. Pulling gently until she turned, until he could see the reddened skin, the wet eyes, and she wiped at them in frustration, more resentful than she cared to admit. These were private wounds. He might have coaxed her to share about her parents, but that did not entitle him to the rest of it. The rest of her. “Let me help you.”

Her hands fell away. And her jaw set and if there was a catch to her voice, then... that could not be helped. “Why?” She couldn’t keep his eye, but she tried. “No more talk of friendships or cut up legs or any of the rest of it. Just... was Firen right?”

He dared to allow his thumbs to move ever so slightly. Gentle. Soothing. As if... as if she was some wild creature that was too filled with instinct to recognise there was no danger at all. Hadn’t she done much the same for Merryweather when first she’d come? With Thorn?

She was no creature. She was a woman grown and he...

He wasn’t answering her.

Which was simply intolerable.

“I am going home,” she informed him. “I realise I cannot avoid you if you intend to follow, but please do not.”

She reached for her bag because it was hers and he had no right to it, but he held it fast. “I do not wish to lie to you,” Braum insisted. “I never have. Everything I have told you has been completely truthful.”

She gave her pack another tug. “All right. But I asked for your motives on more than one occasion. You had the—” She stopped short of saying audacity, but it was a near thing. “You pretended to be offended. When you knew...”

He grimaced. “Your friend... Firen, was it? Just because she said friendships between...” he hesitated, and she wondered what he’d first meant to say. “Between our sexes is uncommon does not make them impossible.”

Her mouth twisted, and this time she pulled with enough force to dislodge her pack from his shoulder. She would leave it behind if she must, but there was an impotent sort of rage that he meant to keep her with him so long as he held it hostage.

He released it with a sad sort of resignation that only fuelled her ire more. It was surrendered—she had not retrieved it by her own accord.

She was being ridiculous. Foolhardy and too quick with her conclusions. But she trusted Firen. It was a sharp sort of realisation. A thrust of truth that stole her breath and twisted her insides because... because it meant she had been too quick to trust him.

And she had.

With his quiet persistence. His calm demeanour and his assurances that he would demand nothing of her.

She did not bother tying the straps. It was an awkward shuffle to secure it without a second person to hold it steady over her wings, and she would not subject herself to the humiliation of Braum bearing witness to her struggle.

It shouldn’t matter, yet the burn of her cheeks insisted it did.

She clutched it to her chest and couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She felt raw. Open. As if everyone knew more than she did. As if she’d been left to bumble her way through customs and a people that she didn’t understand. And it made her resent her father again. For all that he hadn’t taught her because... why would it have mattered? Her life was set apart. And he liked to look at her as if she was the fledgling on his knee and not... not a woman that could feel small and foolish and be lied to again and again, and...

Wren swiped at her eyes. Forced herself to turn back slightly. “Do you know what it’s like to be made a fool of? Because you stupidly believe what someone says? And you’ll get the privilege of carrying it with you for always while they...” she shivered. Stopped before she cried in earnest.

He looked stricken. Hurt. And she’d done that. It should have brought some satisfaction, surely. But instead she felt a prickle of uncertainty, a desire to mend things when she knew better than that, didn’t she? She could not afford to be vulnerable. To be taken in.

Not again.

Sweet words were only that. And if she craved them, longed for more, then...

That was her burden. Her shame.