Page 93 of Bound

Another smile that did not reach his eyes. “I am fine.”

She did not like to be pushed. Liked when her answers were left alone and the subject allowed to shift away with little fuss. But he’d been her friend, and if he wanted to share in some of her troubles, then maybe it was not so wrong for her to do the same.

“That is not what I asked.”

He blinked, obviously surprised she had not allowed him to avoid her query. “I have not,” he relented slowly. “I have had much on my mind.”

She nodded. Shouldn’t ask if it had been about her. That would be rude. Arrogant, even. “About me?”

She skimmed her finger across the edge of her mug, avoiding him, her heart quickening in her chest that the words had slipped out of their own accord.

A breathless sort of laugh escaped him. “Yes, about you. About how many days I might go without trying to see you again. What I would do when you bolted the door in my face and ordered me away.” A sigh, deep and haggard. “It’s a terrible thing, you know. Trying to listen to what you say. Respect your wishes. Be what you need. I was not aware a bond could be so complicated.”

It stung. Nothing in his tone suggested he’d meant any kind of insult, but it hurt all the same. She’d asked for nothing. Tried to release him on more than one occasion, even before she’d known of his... affliction. “My apologies,” she countered tartly, sitting up straighter. She opened her mouth to say more, but he ducked his head, bringing it so that he was looking up at her, his smile warmer than it had been.

“I was not complaining,” he assured her gently. “You wanted honesty from me, and I wish to give you what you ask for. You ask for so little, after all.”

Her cheeks burned.

“You should have heard my sister,” Braum continued, his tone becoming less grave. A big lighter. More fond. That he cared for his sister was more than apparent. That other Wren, the one that maybe had visited her father through her girlhood, who knew the Harquil ways and would make less of a fool of herself—she wanted to meet her. Would she be like Firen? Or quiet and steady like Braum?

“She sent Cyrras to the market so many times those first days. Insisted he should learn all of her favourites. To know her better, she said.” He shook his head, but there was no losing the warmth in his eyes. “Nonsense, the lot of it. She simply likes her food and her pretty baubles, and he was happy to indulge her.”

He did not reach for her, but there was something in his look that suggested he wanted to. Perhaps there was another Braum as well. The one to match with that other Wren. Where things might be easy, their affection free and without hesitation.

She felt sorry for this Braum, that he should be left with her instead.

“And you think,” he continued, his voice a soft rasp, as if caught in some tension in his throat. “That I mind sharing my lumber and my time? That I would not trade both a thousand times over, if it meant sitting here with you?”

Her throat ached, and some of the sting from his earlier comment. He wasn’t complaining. Not yet. Not when she did send him away again. Even... after all this. He knew she must, didn’t he? He’d understand this time? That she might accept a friend with a little coaxing and a great many rules in place, but anything more, anything else that would mean... more...

She couldn’t do it.

Perhaps that was a failing on her part. An inability to heal quickly enough, to set aside wrongs and stubbornly hold to those first determinations that saw her through the first, awful days after it happened.

When she hurt so badly, in body and somewhere deeper.

When she’d wept as she realised there might be a baby, the realisation coming slowly. Making her feel even more stupid and childish that she hadn’t put a stop to it sooner.

Wept again, this time in relief, when her bloods came.

Only to feel a fresh devastation at the loneliness that followed.

Alone. Forever this time.

Better that, she’d promised herself. Over and over until it became as true to her as the necessity of milking and feeding and mucking. Better alone than to endure a careless, thoughtless mate.

She glanced at Braum. Always watching her, sometimes his smile quick for her, other times slow and uncertain of being caught.

He wasn’t careless. Wasn’t thoughtless.

She rubbed at her forehead and curled into herself again.

And felt him place his hand between her wings. He did not move. Perhaps he didn’t dare to. Which was fair, and she did not know what she might do about it. It was one thing when he’d gripped about her middle, full of his own emotion as he struggled with a story that wasn’t his. It was quite another when the touch was for her sake, and she couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. Didn’t trust herself to know what was safe, what to encourage, what to...

Enjoy.

She sniffled. Wiped at her eyes. Promised herself that if he moved even the slightly bit, she would wriggle away and cling to the other side of the tree and scold him if he tried to close the distance between them.