Page 48 of Sunder

She was going to lose her fingers. Or maybe just one. And he was a healer, and he would have to live with the outcome after he’d patched her up, the guilt and the horror because he was the one that suggested it and...

Brum was surprisingly dainty as he took the bread from her hand. His breath was warm, his nose was slightly wet as he nuzzled briefly at her palm, and took it in his jaw to eat properly down on his cushion.

No blood.

No lost fingers.

Just a tail that continued to thump against the floorboards.

“There now,” Athan praised, as she stared down at his companion. “You lived!”

She did.

And she lived through allowing her pointer finger to press once against the too-large head. Perhaps he wasn’t so large. Perhaps it was just his fur, so thick and full, that made him appear so.

The creature looked up at her, and there was its tongue again. It appeared... pleased. Very much so.

She would not be jealous of the Brum. She refused.

Orma didn’t long for cushions on the floor. To be petted and pampered and treated like a pet.

But she could admit, if only to herself, that she wanted the ease between them. The settled routine—of knowing where to be and how to be. No frets or worries between them.

“Won’t you sit with us?” Athan urged, nodding toward her vacant chair.

She should tell him she needed to dress. To wash her face and prepare to go home.

But she’d promised to eat at his table, and her few meagre bites likely did not count for much.

She settled nervously back in her chair, trying not to flinch every time Brum’s tail brushed against her. It was not barbed, but it was heavy, and he had a tendency to look up at her as he did, as if it was done with intention.

She did not know what it meant, but he did not appear to be bullying from her seat. Perhaps he did not blame her for his earlier banishment.

Which was good.

“How can I help you relax?” Athan asked, finally beginning to fill his own plate with the food he’d prepared.

Her posture was stiff, but she tried her best to force her shoulders down and get some deep breaths into her lungs. “I am not... I do not think I have a very relaxed constitution,” she admitted, reaching out for her mug. It had lost some of its warmth, but she took a sip, anyway. If she was a different sort of mate, she would offer to brew fresh. But that would mean she knew how to use a stove, and where he kept the leaves, and...

She ate a little, because she knew it would please him and because she need her strength for later. She could not stay. It was possible Lucian went to her home and... explained. Or tried to. But if he didn’t, then her parents deserved to hear it from her directly. To be involved in working out all that came next.

It didn’t matter how much the very prospect made her insides squirm.

“Now, I should think acknowledging one’s challenges would help, but you’re working yourself up into a panic.” Athan was watching her, and so was Brum, for that matter, and she really needed to stop doing this. She was undesirable enough at hervery best, let alone when she was shaking whenever her thoughts took a turn. “What are you thinking about?”

She addressed the plate rather than him. “Going home,” she answered honestly. “Telling my parents all that has happened.”

“Ah.” Athan took another bite of his meal before he reached out and added more steaming tea to her cup. “I hope you are factoring my presence into your imaginings.”

She looked up sharply. “Why would I do that?”

If he was disappointed in her answer, he did not show it.

“Because,” Athan answered with all the patience she did not posses. “I am your mate, and they are your kin. Therefore, we have an attachment, whether or not they are pleased with it.”

A lump settled in her throat.

“And if they are not, I would not have you subjected to it all on your own. Not when it is my profession they will object to.”

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