Page 22 of Sunder

He heard the clinking of bottles, and he shifted. Back to a healer intrigued with her treatments, her condition. He eased the bottle from her fingers and held it up to what little light there was. “What is this?”

She had no right to be cross with him. This disaster was of her making, and he would be the one to pay the highest price.

“I do not know exactly.”

She knew he was frowning, her answer unsatisfactory. If they’d tried to tell her before, she couldn’t recall. Everything was filtered through her parents—their selections, their choices. Habits driven from childhood, when she was too young to give much input at all.

“Will you wait?” he asked, his voice tense. “Never mind the infirmary. Come home with me. Just... just for tonight.”

It was not a concession made easily, nor was it one a mate should have to give. She needed her tonic back, needed her hand back, but so much was beyond her control.

She was only supposed to find him. To watch him.

See if she liked him. If he was worth risking losing the rest of herself for.

But that had been taken away from her, and now...

“Wasn’t that your home?” she asked, thinking of the house. The man with the lantern. A brother? Cousin? Kin, surely, if he was there so late.

“No,” Athan answered, already tugging at her hand. He was going to carry her. Which should have been mortifying if it did not feel so needed. “A patient.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“I am going to pick you up now,” he told. Not asked. Which should have upset her greatly.

There was no accompanying warm purr as he held her for the first time. Just that sharp inhalation again. The one that said he found her lacking. Followed by the concern that flowed freely across the bond.

She was too light; she knew. Orma certainly didn’t need him chiding her for it.

“Will you tell me of your illness?” he asked, already flying upward.

She’d given no assent. No agreement to his proposed plan. Yet he was taking her there, presumably to his home, and she lacked the energy to fight back.

She wanted Lucian back. To intervene, to explain when she couldn’t.

But she’d sent him away, wanting to believe she could take care of it herself.

Another foolish choice. One of many she’d made in a single night.

He hadn’t given her tonic back, and that angered her.

Her head lolled.

“Orma,” he insisted, his wings beating faster as he hurried to his home.

“You took my tonic,” she mumbled. It sounded muzzy and slurred to her own ears. She wasn’t sick. Just tired. But he wouldn’t know that. Because he did not know her. Did not know about threads and shimmers and the cord that had buried in his chest. He’d just know the bond had flickered to life, gentle and welcomed.

He’d think her awful for resenting it.

It shouldn’t matter what he thought. Shouldn’t matter that she liked he was strong. That he could carry her. That his response to meeting her for the first time was a warm smile and a hug.

She was the broken one. That did not know how to be welcoming and soft.

A prickly family. That’s what Lucian called it. He was soft with Firen. Could hold her and love her, despite his upbringing.

His mouth came to her ear. Not touching, but his breath tickled, and she flinched away from him. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I need you to keep talking to me, Orma. I don’t trust you to sleep in your condition.” He jostled her, which was really quite rude, and for one horrible moment she thought he intended to drop her.

She was not prepared to fly, and she opened her mouth to tell him so, but he steadied again. Waited for her to do as he’d asked.

---