Page 88 of Fate

“Maybe,” she answered cheerfully, peeking into each room she passed. Furnished, but only just. A wooden bench in sore need of cushions to make it at all comfortable to sit upon. A wooden table in the kitchen, sanded smooth and utterly lacking in the nicks and dings that accompanied daily life. The floors were bare of rugs, the walls had no tapestries. But all that could be fixed. Would be fixed. Just as soon as they had coin enough to manage it.

She turned and thrust her arms about Lucian’s neck, her wings fluttering so that she was a little taller than him for once. “That would have been enough for me. If it had made you happy, for us just to have a room of our own and to trek all the way home for yes,just a crust of bread, I’d have made every flight cheerfully.” She kissed him full on the mouth. “Because we’d be together, and you’d be happy, and you wouldn’t have to live in my playroom.”

He glanced away from her, which was made even more obvious by their close proximities. “You should expect more for yourself.”

She shook her head, but her smile did not fade. “All right. If you say so.”

He looked at her then. Full of all the seriousness she couldn’t seem to keep. “I don’t...” he groaned, and she settled her feet back on the floor. She wasn’t nervous, not then, but she didn’tlike how he seemed to struggle with his words. How to talk to her.

Always their problem.

“Don’t what?” She nudged him, not playfully, but to prompt him.

“You shouldn’t be happy just because,” he blurted out. “You should have the important things. Like a home, and...” he gestured about the rooms. “Things you like. Which we will get,” he pressed on. As if reassuring himself as well as her. “You can want things.”

Her brow furrowed, and she tried to make sense of his tangent. “You don’t think I could be happy, just with you?”

Lucian rolled his eyes. “Do be serious.” He made to pull away, but she caught his hand—the other full of papers, hers still holding the keys to their new home.

“I am.”

He didn’t glare, but it was a near thing. “Well, I am certainly not enough. There should be food on the table, and proper beds to sleep in. There should be flowers in those boxes you said you liked. The one with the windows.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “All reasonable,” she soothed, smiling softly.

While he paced.

And she let him.

Because...

He saw the life he wanted. The one he wanted for her. And perhaps it overwhelmed him, for the moment. How far they had to go.

But she was patient. Could be patient. Would be. For all those little things that mattered to her.

Like the family she planned to have.

The fledglings that would look a little bit like her, and a lot a bit like him.

Or perhaps the other way around.

It was a strange sort of assurance. That he wasn’t being cruel, but rather... thoughtful. In his unusual manner, that was simply... Lucian.

“I don’t mind your aspirations,” Firen continued, because they were silent too long and she was itching to explore the rest of their new home. “I... like that you have ambitions. That you want to provide for me.” It was what a mate did, wasn’t it? Love and sacrifice, all mingled into one. A joy to be found in both. “But it doesn’t have to happen all at once. That’s all. It doesn’t mean I’m so silly to think that I’d be all right starving as long as you were doing it with me.” She reached for him and squeezed his arm and smiled at him even as his brow furrowed and he looked at her as if she just was that foolish. “Honest. See? I’ll even amend my list. I’ll be happy with you, so long as I have hot tea in the mornings, and a warm supper in the evenings, and plenty of quilts, so we needn’t share when we take to our bed.” Her smile grew cheeky. “Better?”

“Much,” he answered dryly, but his shoulders relaxed and he drew in a deep breath as his hand ran through his hair. Just the once. “Perhaps I am impatient.”

Firen drew closer now that he was calming. Set the keys on the table. Took the papers still in his hand and set those beside. Only after did she put her arms about him, and waited for him to return her embrace before she answered him. “You want to take care of me,” she murmured into his chest, and she said it so warmly that it could not be taken as anything but a compliment. Hoped he couldn’t.

His hand settled on the back of her head, and he leaned down to press his cheek against her hair. “I do not want you to leave.”

Her brow furrowed. She’d hoped—no, she’d thought they were beyond that. But perhaps those fears were too deeply ingrained to simply disappear with a single conversation. Nomatter how sincere the promises made had been. “I do not want you towantto leave,” he amended.

She sighed and nestled closer. “Quite a pair we make. So certain the other is only here by duress.”

He hummed, but did not correct her. “Are we supposed to do something about that?”

“Probably.”

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