Page 44 of Sunder

Her lips thinned, and she shook her head. “Do you care for research?”

That was what mattered most, wasn’t it? Anything but to be another specimen. Especially to him.

“Ah. While I respect those that dedicate themselves to that pursuit, I admit my passion is more for the individual. For whatever ails them.” He glanced up at her. “Does that disappoint? Would you have preferred I commit to a specialty?”

She frowned. She would have preferred he was a stonemason or a fisherman. Or one of the sailors that travelled to distant shores and was happy to visit her when he came to port again.

She did not say it. Wouldn’t say it. Not when he was looking at her, as if he had already proven himself a disappointment.

“No,” she assured him. “But...” she took a deep breath, summoning courage she was certain she did not have. Not when her heart fluttered so and her hands trembled. “Imagine... you’re summoned to a little girl. And her parents tell you she canseebonds. As clearly as any other feature on a body—a wing, a cheek marking. A nose. And she used it, no matter how inadvisably, to seek out her mate before it was time, and now she suffered. Greatly. What would you do?”

He was very still. He did not lean back, did not withdraw from her. Just searched her eyes for confirmation it was her, that she was that little girl, and he was sorry, and this was wrong, but he was... curious.

Wanted to know more.

Which was reasonable, she reminded herself firmly. It meant nothing. Or at least... it did not have to mean what she feared it did.

“I would listen,” he said at last. Which was not at all what she was expecting. “To all she had to say about it. Every bit. And then I would go to my books, even though I knew none of them described anything like it.”

Not true. Some did. Ancient ones. She’d seen the crumbled tomes for herself, the pages worn with time and water damage.

They’d been forgotten, after all. Shoved into a room at the top of the Hall, because they weren’t relevant any longer, were they?

He huffed out a breath, and his hand went to his hair, pushing through the dark strands, his wings tucked down low. “And if those failed me...” Which they would, and he’d grow frustrated, and reach the same conclusions as all the others. Experiment. Probe. Take meticulous notes to add to those crumbling tomes for healers in the next century to marvel at. “I’d do my best to see to her comfort. So she wasn’t scared and aching for the rest of her days.”

She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t.

Even so, he got up from his seat, and suddenly she was standing, too.

And was pulled into his arms. Not to carry her anywhere, but just... to be held.

Because perhaps her eyes were dry, but something else in her wept. For the girl she’d been. For the woman she’d longed to be. And he felt it. He knew.

He smoothed her tangled hair. Let her bury her face in his chest, which really was inappropriate, wasn’t it? Except the bond promised this was right, this was what she needed, and it was her right to receive it from him.

She did not trust the bond. Not in the least. Somehow, along the way, it had become her enemy. The source of too much grief, and now it was wheedling impossibly deeper inside of her. Urging and whispering.

She shuddered.

Felt his arms tighten about her. “You can trust me, Orma. I swear to you. I would not have done what they did.”

He couldn’t know that. Hadn’t seen her huddled and small and poisoned from the bond that now was supposed to be her comfort.

His hand came to the back of her neck, to the knot where she carried so much of her tension. His thumb pressed inward, and she had to fight to keep back her moan of appreciation. “Will you believe me?”

He was not being fair. He shouldn’t be trying to coax responses from her, vocal or otherwise. These were her queries to him, so she might judge more of his character. “I want to,” she allowed, because that was as much truth as she could offer.

He was too close to her, and they were improperly dressed. A mistake on her part. They should be properly buttoned and laced during their interactions, otherwise it made the bond do strange and cajoling things. Wasn’t it nice to be so intimate? To feel his arms about her? She should stay there. See what it felt to place a kiss where the bond glowed brightest beneath the too-thin fabric of his sleeping shirt. It was what made him hers, and she’d sheltered it, nurtured it for so long...

She shook her head, muzzy-headed and feeling far too strange. How many of these desires were her own? Long-buried and held strictly under her control?

And how many were his?

It weighed on her. How little she’d asked of him. So preoccupied with her own protection, her own mistrust, she’d neglected to offer even the small courtesies.

“What did you want of a mate?” she asked, muffled as her voice was because she hadn’t brought herself to move. To wriggle out of this first embrace, born of comfort rather than moving her from one place to the next. “Or, at least, what were you looking forward to the most?”

He hummed, his cheek brushing against the top of her head as he considered. Or was he breathing her in? Relishing the way the bond flared and pulsed. Warmed them all over.

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