Page 74 of Bound

Even as he held her, as he willed what small comforts he could give to imbue into her...

There was no bond to aid him. She did not turn her face to nuzzle closer. Did not breathe him in and whisper her troubles, so he might bear them equally.

She was alone. Even when he was with her.

His company meant nothing. His promises, his reassurances... They were empty. Tainted by this other.

He wanted a name. A description. The location of his person, so he might... What exactly?

Braum was not a violent man. His was an orderly race that preferred treaty and trade to sword and fists.

He questioned if it had always been so with the urges suddenly coursing through him. As he listened to his mate’s despair...

She spoke. Too quietly for him to make out the words. But it was an improvement to her continued tears. He should be in the kitchen. Had she eaten that morning? He cursed himself for not making a better plan. Of anticipating how early she would have to leave in order to make it to the city for the beginning of the market.

When was the last time he had walked there? Shame niggled at him. Braum could not truly recall. He would oversee the carts carrying his wood on occasion, but even that would be a flitting sort of inspection from above.

He had choices.

She did not.

It might have been different had he considered his mate more. Attended her from the start. Brought her a fine breakfast for a change. Enjoyed talking with her along the way. Taken her directly to the vendor where they would have doubtlessly argued over whom exactly would pay for the oil he had been the one to insist upon.

In that, he’d prepared, visiting the man the day before and fixing the price considerably lower than was typical.

She would have been angry about that, too. Considered it a deception. What else could he do when she would not allow him to care for her?

He thought he’d known desperation before. When he’d first watched her walk away from him, his blood thrumming with the knowledge that he’d only just found her.

The force of will it had taken to stand still, to allow her to go, to keep from frightening her with the ferocity of feeling that had terrified him plenty.

He’d known it with each sleepless night. As he circled and prayed he’d be strong enough not to land, to creep inside and terrify her with his presence. To coax her into accepting him because it was right, wasn’t it? To be together. To sleep with her tucked close to his body, to shield her from anything. Everything.

So he’d enacted rules. Little boundaries that he could not allow himself to cross, and he should respect them even now. Respect her word. Should go and mourn and live with the roiling twisting of his insides, that everything was wrong and only together could they possibly make it right.

Even the roof would yield if he burrowed. Tore at with enough determination. Insisted on his due, even as she looked at him with those eyes full of tears, full of betrayal and...

Had another insisted on his way? Hurt her? Lied to her?

Abused her?

He leaned forward, his hands abandoning the thatch to bury into his hair instead. As he rocked slowly, trying to hold himself to together. She quieted, and that should have been a comfort to him, to know that her distress had possibly faded into sleep.

But it didn’t.

He couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t know she was still there. And his instincts were too near the surface, ones that screamed at a threat he did not know and of a circumstance that was unthinkable.

None of his kind would do such a thing, would they? They were an honourable race. Bonds were sacred. Lauded.

She’d heard it all before.

He wanted to think that it was from her father. Trying to explain to a heartbroken little girl why he had to leave, why he could not be a family with her mother any longer. Talk of bonds, of permanence, of the inevitability of it all. Twisted and transforming into something ugly, to be feared and resented rather than longed for.

He’d believed that yesterday. Even this morning.

He didn’t any longer.

Braum had thought patience would be sufficient. A steady reassurance that she was safe with him. That there would be no other woman to ever pull him away because...