Page 86 of Bound

She glanced beyond him. To the tree where they’d sat together. It had been easier to talk when they did not have to look at one another. When she’d started to believe he only meant to be her friend.

Wren rubbed at her face with the back of her wrist, her frustration making her cross. She did not want to deal harshly with him. She just wanted him to believe her. They couldn’t continue any longer. Not once that horrid word was bandied about, spoiling everything that might have been.

She opened her mouth to tell him she would go nowhere with him. That he was mad if he thought she’d leave this house at his behest. That if he thought she was fool enough to put herself in a position to be lied to again, then he was the greater fool.

She blinked, her shoulders slumping.

Because she wanted to go. And it felt like a greater weakness, one she did not want to admit to herself, let alone to him.

“Must you make this so difficult?” she asked instead, unable to look at him.

He answered with a bark of laughter, utterly without humour. “I am the one making it difficult?”

She glared at him, and it came more easily than the rest of it. “Who else? Because it certainly isn’t me. All I have ever done is keep to myself. Tend to my stall, to my land. Ask for as little as possible so I’m as little trouble as possible for anyone, so if you mean to say that I’m the difficult one...” she pointed toward the door yet made no move to actually close it. “Then I wish you a fair afternoon and ask you to keep it elsewhere.”

He scowled at the ground in front of his boots, his jaw tense—his shoulders more so.

“You are right,” he said at last, which was not at all an admission she expected from him. “The... challenges are certainly no fault of yours.” He glanced at her. “What is it that frightens you? Is it... me, or the prospect of a mate at all?”

Her stomach tightened and her hand came to her mouth of its own accord. “Do not use that word, please,” she begged. Wondering why she couldn’t simply eject him. Why she didn’t truly want to.

He closed his eyes, looking all the world as if her plea was a fresh wound upon him, and she didn’t know how to help that. Not when he was hurting her with every effort at discussion.

“The prospect, then. If even the word disgusts you so.”

Her arms came about herself, and she shrugged again. He rubbed his forehead tiredly, and she was struck again by how tired he looked. Her mother’s voice, so clear it might have come from the kitchen itself, that she should offer him some tea. A biscuit too. Lest he fall from the skies on his way home.

She hated this. She had no desire to hurt him, but she felt the beginnings of another sort of voice. Her father’s, sad and gentle. Trying to explain to his heartbroken fledgling why he had to go. That he loved her no less, and yet...

“Why can you not just leave it be? Just go and...” Her voice broke and her arms were not enough about her. They did not feel like the embrace she needed. His promises were not the ones she craved.

“Would that make you happy? Truly?” His tone was dubious, and an adamant yes was at her lips before she even had to think about it. Peace would come back. Her compartments would stay carefully shut without him prodding about her memories. Her histories.

But something stopped her. Gave her pause as she fussed and tugged at her braid and couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I don’t know,” she said instead, finding it was true enough. She’d liked him about the place, but that seemed a cruel sort of admission to offer when she couldn’t allow it to happen ever again. Not if he mistook it for any hope of taking his place as her...

She groaned.

Wondered at herself. At her own tongue that was fierce and determined in her own mind and then when it came time to saying what she thought and how she felt, it failed her. Time and again. She fought for nothing, argued against no one, except for their petty remarks she would say toward her father when she was feeling particularly lonely.

Then chided herself firmly when she was alone again, more than aware that she would know the true meaning of loneliness if she frightened him off from ever visiting again.

But even in her mind, it wasn’t her father’s face she conjured; it was Braum’s.

Shaking his head, glaring at her as he left. If he bothered to give a goodbye at all.

She didn’t bother with her shoes. Didn’t look at him as she passed, although she should have brought two tin cups so they could at least have the distraction of fresh water from the pump. But she didn’t.

Wren went to the tree, the shade almost too cool with the breeze, but she left her wrap inside too. It wasn’t so bad once she tucked her knees against her chest and added her arms and chin on top. Braum followed, each step slow and careful, as if he thought she’d yell at him for coming too close.

The looming was worse than the sitting, made her feel small, and she hated it. So she nodded toward the other side of the trunk, and thought briefly of a tray between them, calm and peaceful. When her stomach wasn’t in knots, and matters were simple.

She closed her eyes, hating it was spoiled now. Because he’d known. Or thought it. Even then. While she’d been savouring the company, he’d been imagining just how long he could lull her into compliance before announcing his claim.

“Why didn’t you tell me from the start?” Wren just as he was easing down beside her. Well, not precisely beside. Far enough that she had to turn her head if she wanted to look at him. Which she didn’t.

Braum huffed out a breath. “At the market, you mean?”

She shrugged. Maybe not then. When she’d been angry and hurt about the comment he’d made, that hadn’t even been meant for her. But after. That first day when he came and wanted to bargain. When she’d begged him for plain speech and honesty.