Page 77 of Sunder

“I liked it,” she admitted, because to refuse was to make up a lie and an excuse, and she did not want that to be their habit.

“Liked what?” Athan asked, his voice quiet. Gentle. If he was surprised at her answer, he did not reveal it, only waited patiently for her to expound.

There was the urge to rise, to pace, to fling her feelings as some sort of accusation, but she shoved it down, trying to make herself clear and precise so they might move away from this dreadful topic.

Then huffed out a breath, frustrated with him. No, with herself. For feelings she didn’t want, and yet now that she’d discovered them, haunted her.

The bond was no help. Nudging and reassuring, or was that him? Asking her to trust him. That she needn’t be afraid to tell him anything, that there was no need for embarrassment, not between mates.

Which was absurd. Even her mother did not like to be watched undressing—that’s why she had a screen situated in her room. They had separate bathing rooms. Not everything must be shared, even with a tether glowing brightly in colours that matched so prettily.

What would it look like when they were both unclothed? Would it grow blinding? Or would she be so fixated on being with him, with the things they would do together, she would not even notice?

“Orma...” he sighed, elongating her name and adding a lilt to it. “Should you like to hear an embarrassment of mine first?”

She would have wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, except he still kept both of them captive. “Maybe.”

He hummed, accepting her feeble response with a smile. “Let’s see... I have quite a few to choose from. But perhaps we’ll save those for other days rather than blurt them all out at once.”

He tapped his thumb against the back of his wrist, making a great show of considering his answer. And something relaxed in her. A tension about her shoulders. Not all the way, but... enough.

“I know,” he declared. “My master was a hard man. Generous and fair, but strict in his beliefs. Most particularly on how oneshould live and comport oneself.” Orma blinked, not expecting that at all. Athan had an easy manner, and she would have expected much the same from the man he so admired. “He very much believed in the health of one’s diet. Small meals, portions routinely throughout the day. Fruits, fresh fish, never dried. That sort of thing. Was a nuisance, most especially when one of my first duties was to prepare those meals.”

“Did you do it poorly?” Orma asked, turning her head and watching his eyes turn wistful as he looked at the wall across the room. Remembering, surely.

“No. They were not difficult, only tedious. Half my time was spent on the market procuring the freshest produce. Then that was insufficient, and he insisted I take up gardening. We couldn’t be sure of the farmer’s methods, after all. There might be something nefarious in his purpose.” Athan’s smile faded. “He grew... strange. In his last years. There were glimmers of it, before, but by the end I hardly knew him.”

He was silent for a moment, and Orma did not know how to answer him. She’d been spared watching the rest of her family age. The passing of her mother’s parents. Her father’s were gone before she’d been born.

“Anyway, that is merely for context,” Athan continued, forcing a brightness to his tone that did not take long to become genuine. “When I received my first stipend as apprentice, I’d grown rather tired of his particular diet. I wanted sweet treats, and plenty of them. I couldn’t spend his coin on such things—I had to account for every bit of spending. But this was my own, and I am sorry to say I squandered a great bit on every stall that met my fancy, and I was so sickened by my gluttonous ways, I had to beg him for a tonic.”

“Did a lecture come with it?” Orma asked, a hint of a smile as she tried to imagine a young Athan and his newfound freedoms.She would have liked to share his treats with him. To watch his enjoyment, to feel it for herself through the bond.

“Naturally,” Athan affirmed with a broad smile. “Never did I think I could miss those, but I found that I do. It is a difficult thing, when suddenly you are the one grown and everyone comes to you for advice. For quite a while, I felt some sort of pretender. A fledgling in a man’s body, dolling out cures and tinctures and imagining I knew what I was doing.” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Until one day, I did know. And people got better, and I had a hand in it, and I have my master to thank for it.”

Athan turned his head and regarded her closely. “I feel that way now. Bumbling about without any idea what I’m doing is right.”

Her throat tightened, and she allowed herself to soften, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. “You are doing a fine job,” she soothed.

He snorted out a laugh. “Am I? It does not feel like it.”

Which was her fault. Because she felt things she shouldn’t, or... or at least, things she didn’t mean to. “I’m sorry,” Orma offered with a sigh, staring down at her lap.

Athan nudged her again until her head popped up and she gave him a rueful look. “I do not need you to be sorry,” Athan insisted. “I just would wish you would take me in your confidence.” He shook his head just a little. “But perhaps that is asking too much.”

It wasn’t. Or it shouldn’t have been.

He’d admitted to a lack of self control in his younger self, and that was all this was, wasn’t it? Not so different. Even if the embarrassment came in a fresh, sickly trickle as she imagined trying to explain it to him.

Perhaps directness could be her saviour. To blurt it out and be done with it, to put it behind them and let them move forward. Whatever that meant.

“I liked when you touched me. Too much.” She couldn’t look at him, but she put a little extra emphasis so he might understand.

If he made her talk about hearts racing and pulses in parts of her that had been quiet and uninterested for as long as she could remember, then she really would go watch the fish with Brum and leave him with his books.

They would have. The others. Asked her drug-addled mind todescribethe feeling. To give words to the sensations, whether it be pain or something else entirely.

Tears welled, and she did her best to shove them down.

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