Page 78 of Sunder

But Athan saw.

He always saw.

She wriggled and shifted and he let her go, let her rub at her face with her sleeve. She didn’t throw it back at him, didn’t ask if he was happy now that he knew and she was humiliated. But it took everything in her to still. To keep her place beside him while she fought down the emotions she didn’t want to feel.

He moved.

Stood.

And she wasn’t ready yet, had only the slightest rein on her composure.

But he wasn’t asking her to follow. Didn’t take her hand and pull her up, not even just into an embrace.

Instead, he sank to his knees so he might catch her gaze, and took her hands with her damp cuffs.

And placed kisses to each of her palms.

Before he placed them against his face, holding them there.

“Do you think you are alone in that?” Athan asked, his eyes soft as she struggled to hold such attention. “Do you think it is something to be ashamed of?”

Her heart beat too quickly, and she worried at her lip, struggling with her answer. There was no shame between mates—even she knew that. But that proved only so much comfort when faced with how strongly she... felt.

For him.

For the way his fingers could affect her so with a simple caress.

“I don’t know,” Orma answered as earnestly as she could. “No,” she amended, because that was the correct response. “I just... I was not ready. So soon.”

It wasn’t hurt that flashed through his expression, but resignation. And somehow that was worse.

“The kiss,” he finished for her, and his hands fell away, and her throat ached.

Yes. “No,” she amended. Because the bond was a fluttering, nervous thing, and one of them needed to be sure. Be precise. “You were playing with the threads. Did you not know? And at first it was simply pleasant, and then...” she did not want to continue, not with her face heating and him kneeling, already looking stricken when she hadn’t even finished. “Then I liked ittoo much,”she insisted.

“I frightened you,” Athan inserted, and Orma had to fight not to tug at her hair and allow her tone to show all the frustration mounting within her.

“It wasn’t you,” Orma managed to get out, and perhaps there was a sharpness to her tone, but she was trying. And at least she spoke at all. “It wasn’t the bond,” she continued. “Ifrightened me. Because it’s too soon, and I’m ill, and I’m not supposed to be thinking about touching you, and being touched by you, and most especially not when we’re reading about all of my past!”

Her hands had fallen away during the middle of it, and now they were clenched into fists at her side as she crumpled forward. His shoulder kept her from becoming the tight ball she needed to be, and her forehead rested there as she fought to control herself.

He brought his hand up and rested it against the back of her head while she cried. She hadn’t even realised she’d begun until a sharp sob lodged in her throat, choking her. Then another hand came to her back, smoothing up and down while he told her it was all right, that she need only to breathe, that nothing was wrong. Most especially her.

“I want to be better,” she got out between the wretched tears that seemed to never stop.

“I know,” Athan soothed, his fingers skimming through her hair. Not her skin—he did not touch that, and she felt a terrible lurch in her stomach that he wouldn’t. She’d ruined even that, because she’d complained and now there would be no more caresses, no more gentle testing of their boundaries.

She felt so contrary, even to herself. She wanted it, but she was afraid of it. Afraid of herself. Of indulging in the bond that felt more enemy than friend. Orma took in a long, shuddering breath and squared her shoulders. Athan watched her carefully as she sat up, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve and insisting to herself there would be no more foolish tears. She was a woman, not a patient. Not a girl tied down and drugged, her responses measured and assessed.

“What are you thinking?” Athan asked.

The bond was tangled, or perhaps that was her as she flittered from one feeling to the next. She wanted to be like him—so sure of his course, that everything would turn out well if only they were patient enough. “Orma?”

“I want an elixir,” she stated firmly.

He sat back. Did not answer.

She reached behind her for the other book, the one with the notes from her latest treatments. Surely the recipe would be included, and he couldn’t argue about not knowing the contents.

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