Page 76 of Fate

He laughed. It was not a mocking sound, but a sudden burst of sound that left her scrambling so she could better make sense of him.

“I have gone, every day, to the Halls. Talked and cajoled with men that some I respect, and others I despised. So that one of them would even consider accepting me. Acceptingus.”He grasped hold of her waist and pulled her back to him. “You think I would do this just to go back and beg my father to take me back? To set you aside and leave you behind?”

Her throat burned and so did her eyes, and it had little to do with the salty breeze.

Far more because of the sudden shame that bloomed inside of her. That somewhere along the way, she’d started expecting the very worst of him. Looked at his family and assumed he was too much like them rather than look at the way he treated her. The care he took of her. And allow those parts to shape her opinion of him.

He nuzzled against her cheek, then brought his lips closer to her ear. “How can you say that you like me when you still expect so little of me?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and clutched him to her. “I am sorry,” she choked out, and she meant it. She was not sinless in this. She was stubborn and fanciful, and she needed to be loyal to him. As fiercely as she held to her own family, she had to do the same for him. Against all others.

And expect the same of him.

He did not accept her apology. Not with words, at least. But he smoothed his hand through her wind-blown hair. Rubbed atthe back of her skull in a way that made her want to cry all the more because it was the precise spot that ached so badly, and his fingers felt like magic as they worked and rubbed the tension out of her. “I will give you a home,” Lucian murmured softly. “One where you will feel safe. Where you will not endure talks of old magics and severing bonds.” He skimmed his lips against her cheekbone. “They are my burden, not yours. I should not have subjected you to them. I am sorry for it. For how they frightened you.” He huffed out a breath, and it was warm while her cheek was cold. “For the doubt they caused.”

It was not only his family that had caused that. While Lucian might have known he would honour her, honour their bond, he’d done little to communicate that from the start. He’d let her think her presence a nuisance rather than a balm, let her think he was opposed to anything that meant moving away from his ancestral tower.

She could chide him for it now. Could remind him of the ways he’d hurt her. But she was tired of that. Some wounds needed to stop being picked out so they might heal, and she thought the first night of theirs was one of them. They’d both made mistakes. Been imperfect and uncertain of one another, and they could dwell there. Mistrustful and full of blame. Or...

“I’d like that,” Firen answered, smiling at him and finding it perfectly genuine. She would go with him. To meet this Vandran and to do all the things he told her to do when dealing with one of his lot. She would not even begrudge him for it.

And maybe they would not get to sleep in her playroom any longer, playing at a life that might have been hers if her mate was different. If his abilities and training left him open to learning smith-craft.

But this was the one she had, and she had to stop dreaming about some other man. The one that aligned so perfectly withher there would be no strain. No pains as they grew and accommodated one another.

He relaxed against her. Pulled her to him and nestled her into his side as they sat in the sand. As they watched, the waves grow and creep. Push and pull. Over and over.

A bit like them, she supposed.

“I mean to take care of you,” Lucian continued. “I am trying.”

Firen nestled closer, and if her hair was blowing in his way, if her wings rustled too much in the wind and bothered him, he said nothing of it. “I know. And I thank you for it.”

He grunted. And if there was more she ought to say, she did not know what it should have been. The bond was tranquil between them. Not pressing at them to love, to consummate their understanding with something physical. It was content with holding. With sitting. With watching as she buried her toes in the sand and pulled them free again, while Lucian made little sounds of displeasure each time she did so.

He would be the one beating sand out of his boots after it worked its way through the laces and into his stockings. And she’d help him. Maybe.

“Firen,” he asked at last, when her cheeks were cold but her heart was warm.

“Hmm?”

“Why are we here?”

She laughed lightly and shook her head. “Because Da would bring us here. Probably because Mama asked him to, and she wanted the house to herself for a while. At least that’s my guess now that I’m thinking about it. But I didn’t know at the time, of course. He’d just announce that we were off on an adventure, and don’t bother with shoes because we’d only have to clean them later.” She tapped her bare foot lightly against his covered one. “And we’d spend all morning looking for shells. Or there was the time the boys found great sheets of seaweed and try towrap me in it until Iscreamed.Then Da taught me how to hit. Then told me not to and made the boys spend the rest of our time playing whatever game I wanted.” She smiled softly at the memory. “A fair trade, I think. That was still one of the best days I can remember.”

She waited, hoping that Lucian would offer a similar story. Something light-hearted. Something that meant that he hadn’t only known harsh words and lonely rooms during his upbringing.

But he was silent. And when she turned her head to look up at him, his jaw was tight. Remained that way, even when she reached up with her fingertips to smooth against it. “Should I not tell you these things?”

He swallowed, his eyes dark and grey. “No. Why would you ask that?”

She would not impose any sort of reason at all. Not when she so often seemed to get it wrong. “I don’t know. Maybe you don’t like stories about siblings when you have none.” That would not be unheard of. She had noticed how some of her market friends got a little wistful, a little sad, when she prattled on too long about her home life. Wren especially. Or she used to, anyway.

He shifted. Not away from her, but enough that she knew it took some effort on his part to remain in place. “There were two fledglings. Before me. Brothers, I think, if you can call them that. They did not live very long.”

Her throat ached. For him, and even for Ellena. Because loss was a terrible thing. Could make one grow cold inside.

She did not say she was sorry, but she was. To live in that shadow must have been a terrible sort of grief, most especially when Lucian had been too young to understand the reason.

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