Page 74 of Fate

Because he thought no one did.

Commitment and obligation. Not wanting and loving and all the fondness that came from being with one’s other half.

He’d never seen better, had he?

Never felt it.

“I’m so sorry you have to ask,” she managed to choke out, hands clutching at him, holding him to her. Keeping him from moving her. “I’m sorry if I...” She stopped, because these doubtshad been bred long before he knew her. She would not carry the weight of them, the burden of wounds she had not inflicted.

But she could be kindly toward the fears they’d left in him. “I like you,” she promised him. And it had become true. When he’d return home and wrap his arms about her from behind. When he consented to live in theshedjust because it meant being with her.When he was respectful to her mother and courteous to her brothers. He did not have to do any of those things. But he chose to. Because...

He wanted to be kind to her. Whether in their bed or out of it. He might not know the way of it, might begin each attempt with a sort of awkwardness she hadn’t understood at first, but she was coming to.

She kissed his cheek just once and pulled back again. “Would you go somewhere with me?”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, and while it might have bothered her even a week before, she felt only a mounting sense of fondness. But the sadness came, just as it always did. That he had cause to doubt her motivations, that he had to wonder if what was to come was a pleasure or a pain.

“Why?”

Because she asked it of him. Because it was a normal thing for a couple to do.

Because they needed to learn how to be with one another outside of these cots. When they were upright and had only words instead of touches to gentle their communication.

“Because it’s good for us,” Firen urged. “And I think we need it.”

He continued to eye her dubiously, and she smiled at him and tried to push all the reassurance she could across the bond. It wasn’t bad. He needn’t be frightened in the least.

It was just her.

Wanting him to venture out with her.

He was still looking at her as if she’d gone slightly mad, and perhaps she had. But she needed to move. Needed to move with him. To fly and be out in the suns and the fresh air, and he needed it too. Of that, she was certain.

“What of your head?”

“Never mind that,” Firen insisted.

“I see. So you’re well enough for dragging me to an undisclosed location, but not enough for...” His voice trailed off but his hand found her breast and held it, his brow quirked.

And she smiled. “Precisely.”

Maybe he huffed at her. Maybe he was only indulging her because he wanted to prove himself likeable. She did not much care as she tugged at her clothing to ensure she did not appear as if she had been napping the afternoon away. Then she did up the laces on her boots as quickly as she could and opened the door. “Well?” she asked, rolling her feet slightly so her heels raised and lowered twice as she saw him sitting on the bed, eyeing her as if she was some peculiarity he could not puzzle out.

“You are not going to the Hall, are you? We have more to discuss before we meet with Vandran.”

It had not occurred to her to attempt anything of the sort, but it was telling that he thought her as impulsive as that. “No,” she promised.

Held out her hand.

And she did not blink at him slowly in the way Mama said she did to urge Da to give her whatever she wanted. Only smiled and waited.

Expecting that he would close the distance between them. That he would follow, because she asked it of him.

And he could sigh if he liked. And he could be the first to pass through the door as if he was the one leading her somewhere. He nodded to her father as they passed, and she smiled and held upher hand, and suppressed her laughter as Lucian pulled her out the workshop door.

Only to cross his arms and lean against the building as he quirked a brow and waited for her to declare her intentions.

But she didn’t. Just fluttered her wings twice, then pushed upward. She would not pretend that the suns were good for her head, but the air was good. A crisp day, tinged with the winter that was supposed to be passed. Grey clouds were pushing in from the north, but they needn’t be gone long. The rest of the sky was clear and bright, and she glided easily far above the city by the time Lucian caught up to her.

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