Page 85 of Bound

A lump settled in her throat.

She wanted to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. That their business had concluded, and they didn’t need to speak any longer about anything at all.

She rubbed at her eyes and drew a harsh breath, feeling as miserable as he looked. “I hope you find a mate one day,” she assured him with all the conviction she had within her. “But it isn’t me.” Whatever element the Harquilpossessed, whatever quality ensured they knew their mates and were bound to them so completely...

It had not passed to her.

And it was cruelty itself for two men to claim that she was so. That she should accept their word on the matter. Just submit, just believe them because it was cruel otherwise. To them. There were laws about keeping mates apart, didn’t she know? It went against everything their people stood for, and she didn’t want to be selfish, did she?

“Don’t do that, please,” Braum urged, his voice quiet, but firm. “You can argue with me. Hand me coins I don’t want or need. But do not...” he paused, shaking his head and looking as if she’d plunged something sharp into his belly. “Do not dismiss it. I can assure you that what I feel is quite real. And yes, it is for want of you.”

She did flinch then.

Took a full pace back from him as his eyes met hers. He was too close to desperate, and she suddenly felt just how alone she was, how unprepared if he chose to be anything but...

But the friend she’d known before.

Another, harsher tug at her braid as she wished most furtively that Merryweather was sleeping upstairs rather than the stable.

Braum took another, equal step.

Not toward her. Not invading her home. But backward. Allowing her more room. He looked even worse than he had before. “I would never hurt you, Wren,” he breathed out, his voice strained with tension. “If you believe nothing of me, have it be that.”

She wanted to. Wanted her nerves to settle and her reason to prove the master over her instincts. The ones that urged her to fling herself up into the loft, to run from him and ignore his presence until he left. He’d done it before.

But the door had been closed and bolted then and...

“Breathe, Wren,” he urged, and she did not like how he kept using her name, didn’t like that he was ordering her about in her own home.

But she did breathe.

And some of her vision settled. Some of her nerves as well, as she could see he’d placed even more room in between them.

“You’re in no danger,” he soothed, and some part of her resented it, resented that he knew to give it and that she was responding to it. “We are only talking.”

“No,” she choked out, shaking her head, hurting in ways that were new and she didn’t think that was possible any longer. “I paid you. And thanked you. So now you’ll go to your home and leave me to mine, and that’s the end of it.”

“Did you receive my note?” There was the tightness in his voice again, the gentle lilt replaced with the tension he could not avoid.

Her eyes flickered to where she kept it. Folded it neatly. Tucked it away with her most treasured pieces from her mother for reasons she chose not to contemplate. “I did.”

His fingers curled about the pouch of coins and a deep frown etched into his features. “Then why would you think I would simply leave? That I would take these and forget you?”

She swallowed thickly, bracing herself for the guilting to begin. “If it’s real,” Wren began, stressing the first word because she couldn’t bring herself to believe it was so, no matter what he said. “I suppose it would be rather a struggle. Or so I’ve been told.” She shrugged, and that was a struggle all its own. “And when it isn’t, when you see that I’m not so easily duped, you’ll have everything owed to you.” She wanted to tell him she was not so easily seduced, but the words wouldn’t form in her mouth, a twist of lies and wrongs and wishes that it hadn’t been true once.

His mouth twisted, and her stomach churned when he looked at her fully. “Is that what happened?”

Another step back, but this time he did not give another pace in answer. “You agreed not to ask anything of me.”

He glanced up at the sky, muttering something low under his breath that she was certain was not particularly flattering to her person. “That was a bargain made for the moment, not for a lifetime. You needed to be home, to feel safe, and you would not allow me to take you otherwise.”

She shrugged again, hating he was right, hating that he knew that, but there was little she could do about it now.

“May we talk? Properly? It needn’t be inside, but if you keep moving backward, you’ll end up in the loft and that would make our discussion rather difficult.”

Good.

She wanted to say that to him rather than have it rattle around in her own mind. Wanted to conjure all the rage and indignation left from another time, another man, but that would mean opening the compartment she’d worked so hard to seal again.