Page 92 of Sunder

He stood her up.

And maybe she was capable of sobbing after all, because the weight of it was going to crush her. She’d grown attached—far more than she’d even admitted to herself. And to have him look at her without that soft smile at his lips, without the tenderness in his eyes...

She closed them tightly.

Waited for him to let go.

Only to feel him bring her back. This time facing him.

As he cupped her cheeks and brought their foreheads together. “I am so deeply sorry, Orma.”

The bond confirmed the truth in his words, but she was having trouble believing them. Or... at least, accepting that was the whole of it. He might be sorry, just as he might be angry.Might hate her as he claimed to hate the ones who had worked on her.

She needed to say something. Anything at all. That he didn’t need to be. That she was fine, and she did not really want any fledglings of her own in any case. It was exhausting enough when her siblings brought their children to supper—well-behaved as they were, they were still children. And since she lacked the energy to play with them and the words to offer any of their ages, they avoided her as the useless creature she was.

He kissed one cheek.

Then the other.

Then the eyelids when he whispered her name again, and she refused to open them. It tickled, and she did not care for it, but at least she wasn’t being shoved away, so she sat and waited because surely this couldn’t be the end of it. More had to be coming. Even he had to have limits to his patience, limits to what he would endure because he had the misfortune to be tied to her.

Their lips met. Only briefly. More whisper than kiss, but he was there. Being gentle with her. Which was the reverse of how it should be. She should be his comfort, help to navigate his feelings rather than forcing him to coddle hers.

How did one do that exactly? When she felt like something was tearing open inside of her? Something long-spoiled. A festering wound that had been numbed with potions and elixirs until she’d been tricked into thinking it was healed.

Was it him? She couldn’t tell any longer. Not when it was all an aching mass that felt only marginally better when he abandoned his kisses in favour of pulling her to him, hugging her so tightly she couldn’t draw a full breath.

That was all right. She didn’t need to.

Not when it would only lead to sobbing, and she was so tired of crying.

Shouldn’t he be the one struggling to hold it together? She’d had years to come to terms with her future. Yet she was the one shaking in his hold while he whispered in her ear. “You hold me to it, Orma. You understand me?” He nuzzled against her cheek, and she gave a little hiccough that would have mortified her in a different moment. “You are not to blame for this. Is that what you thought? That I would be angry with you?”

She made a sound low in her throat, not quite a committal but not a denial either.

“I cannot give you children,” Orma managed to get out, because maybe he didn’t understand. Maybe he thought they’d only poked about, but hadn’t actually...

But they had.

It was gone.

Her womb was gone.

There would be no miracles, no surprises. Only a terrible certainty that felt like the worst sort of disappointment she could be to him.

His hand came to the back of her neck and he brought her out from her hiding spot in his collarbone. “There is no you. No me.Wecannot have children,” Athan confirmed, his eyes so sad it made her ache all the way to the tips of her wings. “And that is very sad, and we can mourn it as long as we need to. But we are mates, my darling Orma. The Maker declared it, and I find no fault in the decision.”

That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. It made her itch all over, made her want to be the one to pace and accuse. He wasn’t taking this seriously, wasn’t hearing her, wasn’t...something,because this was a far bigger deal than he was making it.

“You cannot be this perfect,” she bit out. Wished she could take it back, because she should be gentle and apologetic, not wrestling with her own feelings. “You cannot just... accept every little thing and not...” she did not want to tell him what tofeel. How to be. But her own frustration was welling up and threatening to strangle her, and his hands came to her shoulders as he pushed her back enough to look at her.

“You think I am not disappointed? That I had not envisioned a child of my own?”

She rolled her shoulders, her wings drooping.

He cupped her chin, and the diatribe she’d braced herself for did not come. “I want you,” Athan insisted. “The whole of you. I might hate what was done to you, hate the conclusions that were reached. But I do not hate you. I could never. Not for a single moment. That does not make me perfect, it only means that my priorities are clear. To me, if not to you.”

Tears fell freely, because she felt small and wretched and yet... hopeful.

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