Page 42 of Fate

The bond was quiet. Demanded nothing. Not their reconciliation. Not to make use of the bed that seemed laughably narrow compared to the one in his chamber. Not even for her to go over and take his hand so they might be friends again.

She closed the trunk with more force than was necessary, her frustration mounting. He’d stolen even the peace she had found during her dip, and she wanted it back.

“That is a location, not an explanation.” He stood in front of her bedroom door, his arms crossed, the very picture of severe disapproval.

“Stop looking at me like that.” She went to her basin, and the water was cold from the night before. No magic pull and tanks hidden in hearth-walls to heat. Just a washbasin and a pitcher, and a cloth that worked plenty well enough to smooth salt away from her skin.

“Like what?” he urged, moving away from the door and taking a step nearer to her.

“Like I’m a fledgling you’re here to censure!” She closed her eyes and prayed for calm. That her hands would stop shaking.

If he rolled his eyes, she couldn’t see it. But she couldfeelit. Her frustration echoed and multiplied until she was ready to pull at her hair and pace as he was so often wont to do.

“Lucian,” she began again, her voice strained, but low. Raised voices served only to further raised tempers. That’s what Mama would say when she would brawl with one of her brothers,tugging and pulling at feathers until she’d finally come in, ready to pluck a few more herself for all the racket they were making. “What did you come here for?”

“I came,” Lucian answered, coming far too close to her back, where she stood in front of her wash table. She could see him in the looking glass Da had hung there. Rippled in places, pitted in others. Hers. A gift, and one she treasured. “Because my mate ran out of a conversation with my mother.” Her mouth twitched but she kept from pressing her lips together. “I came,” he continued, his hands coming to settle on her shoulders. “Because she said I might find her here. Only I did not find her here at all, did I? Not when you were out drowning yourself in the sea.”

This he whispered into her ear, his head leaning close so it was solely between the two of them.

Firen blinked once, her brow furrowing. “I was doing what?”

She turned, disregarding the grip he tried to keep on her, wanting to face him properly. “When I get overwhelmed,” she answered as clearly as she could manage. “Or angry,” although she could not properly recall that being the cause before now. “I like to take a swim. To dive and hold my breath and when I surface, everything feels... better.”

She shoved at his chest, and if it hit where the bond was settled, then she hoped it jangled just a little bit for even suggesting something so wretched. “I might be disappointed. I might be upset that your parents find me so distasteful.” Then, for good measure, she reached into the washbasin to wet her hands and flicked water at him so he too could be a little damp. “I might have wished that I had a mate that adored me from the start, that looked at me with a modicum of happiness that I was his, but that doesn’t mean...” she cut herself off before she said something she would regret. “You do not know me,” she reminded herself. Reminded him.

“I am more than aware of that,” Lucian agreed, wiping away the dribbles of water that had found purchase on his cheek. “You do not know me, either.”

He reached for her.

Kissed her.

Tried to kiss her.

His mouth wanted hers, but she turned her head and shoved away from him, and yes, the bond gave a half-hearted pull that she wasn’t doing things properly.

“No,” she stated firmly. “No,” she repeated, because her pulse raced and she hadn’t finished washing—had scarcely even begun.

His arms crossed, and he huffed low in his throat.

“Why not?”

Brooding might become him, but sulking did not.

“Because you thought me so desolate a moment ago that you thought I was attempting todrownmyself. And while perhaps I shall allow that you are relieved and wanted to celebrate that I am, in fact, in control of my own faculties, I do not believe those to be your motives.” She shoved at her hair, and she wished she was bold enough to shove him out the door so she could comb it out in peace. “You wish to distract me.”

Lucian snorted before shaking his head. “We are good at distractions. The rest is abysmal.”

It hurt. It shouldn’t. She should agree with him. But she had liked parts of it. When he talked to her. Brought her pastries. When he curled about her before they slept so that shewouldsleep.

“Firen...”

She shook her head. “Just... maybe you should go home. If... if you’re not here to set things right.”

He sank down onto her bed. Not Eris’s. It had either been happenstance or some innate sense that had him at the foot of hers.

“What does that look like?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head tilting up to look at her. “Do you know? Because I do not.”

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