Page 40 of Sunder

“No, it isn’t. Not if it makes you look like that.”

She did not bother to wonder at her appearance. She felt the tension that settled through her entire being, stealing her appetite and making her wish she’d made a different choice about clothing.

She could fly away if she was in her own clothes.

“I don’t know what to do,” she amended. Better to get it all out. To let him see the problem so he wasn’t left hurt and wondering. “I do not know how to go home, but that’s what I want to do. I don’t know how to take you with me.”

He nodded, as if that was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Because of my profession.”

She blinked. Glanced up at him. “Why do you keep saying that?”

He smiled indulgently, and she did not care for it. “A lesson from my master when he took me in. Everyone admires a healer when they have need of one. Until it means odd hours and...” He tapped his finger against his mug before looking back at her. “We are a private people, aren’t we? We keep to our mates.”

Her stomach twisted strangely. “What are you saying?”

He leaned across the table, pushing another plate of food in her direction. Waited until she’d taken another selection, although she paid it no attention, simply added it to the other untouched articles on her plate. “Some feel strange at theprospect of their mate looking at others without their clothing. Of seeing, and touching, despite how professional the reasons.”

She would not think about how much of her the healers had seen. Had touched. Fingers, and tools, and eyes that narrowed, and they’d mates at home. Because it was proper, even if it hurt. Even if it left her feeling strange and dirty and she’d cry for ages after.

Athan would not have done that, would he?

“You are frightened,” he observed, and she did not like that. Didn’t like him plucking at her feelings and speaking of them aloud. They were hers—were meant to be hers.

She took a deep breath. Focused.

Forced herself to look at the cords between them. Willed them to dim. Quiet.

And they did. Wavering and protesting, but listening.

Athan blinked.

“What are you doing?”

The bond might be new to him, but it was not for her. She could not sever it, but she could make it less intolerable. Keep some things to herself.

“He told you all that, and you became a healer, anyway.” She wasn’t ignoring him, but... maybe she was. Because there were things she did not want to answer, and others she had no answers for at all.

“I did,” Athan affirmed, his eyes narrowed. She could feel him working at the bond, tugging and pressing and trying to determine what she’d done. It felt strange—to be so aware of another person. Of the tether that had been so one-sided, feeling full andalive. “And hoped my mate might forgive me. Might see that the work was necessary. That people need help. My help.”

He stopped his inspection and stood, and she did not like it.

Liked it even less when he knelt beside her chair, pulling it slightly so she might look at him without the ability to hide. “I think you need my help.”

Orma’s mouth twisted. “No more healers,” she informed him. “My parents promised me.”

Athan huffed out a breath, but he did not allow even a trickle of irritation to pass through the bond. “You could choose for yourself. I would never hurt you, Orma.” He reached for her hand, and for reasons she could not explain even to herself, she let him take it. It felt good to have his hand surrounding hers. He was warm, his skin was soft, but she waited for the panicky feeling to overtake the pleasant sensations. “You’ve been hurt, yes? By healers?”

Her throat tightened, and she could not breathe, let alone talk.

But she could nod.

Just the once.

“I am so very sorry.”

He had no business looking as he did. As if he knew all of what had happened to her and he was so deeply sorry for it. If he could look at her with all that sorrow for just a few scars and a mysterious elixir, she did not know what he might do if he heard the rest of it.

She did not know what she was supposed to do. Comfort him in some way? Remind him she was sorry, that she did not want him to be tied to someone like her. But the words stuck in her throat, true as they were, and she just sniffled and her feathers shivered as she tried to hold herself together.

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