Page 90 of Bound

She screamed. A loud yelp that tore from her throat and she couldn’t pull free and she hadn’t known fear like this. Hadn’t known that men could be like this when she was used to her gentle father, his easy manners. His good-humour.

She fought. Wriggled.

And then Thorn was there.

A growling mass of fur that pawed at her attacker, sending him sprawling across the yard.

Maybe there was blood. Maybe it was hers, maybe it was his. But her face was warm with it, and she touched it dumbly. Was Thorn going to kill him? She should do something about that, shouldn’t she? Try to help, to intervene.

But her limbs wouldn’t work. Not even to run into the house and bolt the door like she ought to. Her will was gone and...

And so was he.

A blur of feathers and curses, and there was Thorn, nudging at her with his great head, licking at her face, her neck, and he was warm while she was cold.

And her arms moved of their own accord, wrapping around his neck and pulling him close as the whole of it pushed at her, pressed at her. His coaxing, his wretched smiles, his touches.

He’d lied. Thought it all a jape, to seduce the gullible girl that would believe him to be a mate simply because he’d said it.

No more.

Never again.

“Thank you,” she murmured into Thorn’s fur between her sobs. “I’ll be one of your grimbles, if you’ll have me.”

Another lick, this time against her arm, and her skin prickled from the contrast in temperatures. She needed to go in. To clean. To purge any bit of him from her home.

Because it was hers, and no one else’s.

And it was going to stay that way.

Was supposed to, at least. She’d adapted once already, when Merryweather appeared and insisted that this was meant to be her home as well. But she didn’t have it in her to accommodate Braum as well. Even if... even if he was slow to smile. When he was quiet and helpful, thoughtful of his every movement.

If she was going to have one... if it was real...

Why couldn’t it be someone like him?

He’d grown so still. So tense. The more she spluttered out in her broken way. It was less a story and more a confession, pulled from the depths of her, a wound that had festered by her lack of attention to it.

She should want to take it back. To keep it her private shame, but now that it was out, purged...

She was better for it.

But one glance at Braum—the tightness of his mouth, the tension in his jaw, his shoulders...

He wasn’t.

She wiped at her eyes, resigned to enduring his reaction. Perhaps this would see the truth out of him at last. He’d see she was faulty prey, that if he was simply a better liar, she wasn’t worth his effort.

And if he truly felt she was his mate, then...

She felt sorry for him.

He’d leave, of that she was certain. He wouldn’t come back. He’d believe her at last that she’d accept no mate at all, not after all the rest of it.

She went into the house. Left him there beneath the tree. She washed her face in cool water and set the kettle to boil, and still he sat there.

Until she went back again, a mug in her hand that she held out for him. But he simply stared, uncomprehendingly, until she uttered his name gently. “Braum,” she urged, and he blinked.