Page 75 of Fate

Talking was a useful venture when the winds caught and carried all sound away. Parents often taught signals with their hands to direct wayward fledglings on what they should do and where they should go. But they were unique within families, carried on and passed down, so beyond a simple wave to follow along, she did not bother to say more.

It was cold. Always was, up here. How many times had Mama chided about wraps and scarves and even a hat if she meant to go on one of these flights?

Had Lucian been subjected to the same in his early years? Or had his parents been so preoccupied with their own priorities they hadn’t cared if their young son got chilled ears and frozen fingers?

It made her ache. Made her fly a little faster so she could wrap her arms about him and promise herself that she would care about those things. That even if it felt strange at first, he would come to find it common. That he would look back and find his upbringing as bewildering as she did.

Or maybe she was wrong. And his parents were not as awful as they seemed. That they loved him in their way, that he was cared for and nurtured. Loved.

Even... even if he was not liked.

She frowned to herself and pushed further. Welcomed the slight burn in her wings because she’d grown sedentary of late. She glanced behind her, wanting to ensure Lucian was nearby. She needn’t have worried—his wings were so large when they spread outward he was impossible to miss. A dark smudge against a light sky, his eyes darting every which way. What dangers he imagined they’d find, she couldn’t say. Or perhaps he was merely trying to get a hint of their destination.

It seemed more than obvious to her. Away from the piers—she was not looking for company. The docks where ships came into the cove and unloaded their wares. It would bustle in preparation for the upcoming markets. Merchants and Proctors with their lists and pens. Carts that would be filled andhesperwith their heads down low as they waited to pull everything into the city itself.

So she went along the coast. Where the beaches were small—more rock than sand.

Then further still. To the small inlet where the cliffs gentled. Then curved. Eased downward and there was a long stretch of sand where the tide had retreated for the moment.

She landed, the sand soft beneath her. The wind was crisp, pushing the clouds over the suns. But the sea was no less beautiful, even if it appeared more grey than its usual blue-green.

Lucian landed close by, eyes already hard as he approached her. “If you are going to suggest one of yourdips,I will bury you in this sand until you agree to return home.”

She wasn’t going to warm all over to hear their loft referred to as home. But she might have smiled absurdly wide and done a little twirl because she was happy.

Which he surely could feel. Even if he continued to look at her dubiously when she suddenly sat on the sand and unlaced herboots. Then removed her stockings, which took very little time at all.

While he stood, looming and glaring, as if she was doing something scandalous. “Sit,” she suggested, patting the sand beside her. “I mean to stay awhile.”

He glanced up at the sky, and she knew what he saw. A day that was going to rain later on. A mate he could not begin to understand.

He did sit. Every movement begrudging as he did so. His shoulders were stiff, his face lined with tension, and he looked so miserably unhappy at it she could not help the sudden burst of laughter that earned her another of his glares.

But it did not dissuade her. The day was too pretty, and if she grew cold, it only meant that she could scoot a little nearer and wrap herself about him. Which, she noted as she did precisely that, did not even bring a sigh from him as he brought his arm about her in turn.

“So,” she began, feeling this a far better arrangement for their talk. No sound of the workroom below them. No worry about fathers on either side. Just them. “You think I don’t like you?”

He waited a moment before answering. “That is not what I said.”

“True,” she agreed, then turned her face so she might look at him rather than out at the sea. The waves lapped greedily at the shore, easing further up with each push and pull. “But you worried about it.” He gave no answer, but his expression was response enough. “Why?”

Lucian stared out at the sea for a long while. And she let him. It was all right, because she could feel him working out what he might say, how much he wanted to share with her. She did not expect him to be able to do it all at once.

“There is a difference,” he began at last. “Between commitment and... liking. Affection,” he amended. “I was willingto honour my commitments from the start, but I’ll not pretend that I have been... easy.”

She snorted, just a little, and she was sorry for it when she caught the glimmer or hurt there. He was vulnerable, her mate. All hard edges and sharp words, but remarkably sensitive to her slightest displeasure.

Firen smoothed her hand down his side and took his hand in hers. “I was eager for change,” she commented, rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand softly. “You were not. I do not blame you for finding it a difficult transition.”

Most particularly when he would lose much. And she...

A lump settled in her throat. “I like how you are with my family. I like that you are willing to live in a loft. I like that you came after me. That you forgave me each time I ran off. That our mating means something to you.” She leaned in closer, because even if she could say it aloud, it still felt private and meant entirely for them. “I like the things you do with me in our bed. I like when I can make you smile. That they’re rare and precious when I get to see one.” He ducked his head, and she was distinctly aware she had embarrassed him.

But there was something else. Something that tugged at her through the bond. Made her reach for his face and turn it back to her. “I think you had some preconceptions about me. And as much as I don’t wish to admit it, I had plenty about you.”

He rolled his eyes, but then brought his hand to capture the one holding onto his cheek. “You keep waiting for me to leave you.”

She rolled her shoulders and her feathers rose briefly before she flushed and forced them back down. “I just don’t think that I mean as much to you as you do to me. I feel like at any moment you’ll have had enough and be back in your tower and...” They were the fears she tried to soothe in the dark before sleep came. When she had to recite all the ways that she was fine and he wasthere, and his arm was about her middle and they’d loved one another well so he wouldn’t go, it wouldn’t be the next morning that he’d leave her. “I couldn’t follow.” It was a confession. One bitten out from a throat too tight with emotion, and she huddled into his side, allowing him to support her. “Please don’t go back.”

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