Page 94 of Threadbound

“It’s not necessary,” Bran confirmed. “But it’s—perhaps expected more often than not that threadbound are also lovers. No one would comment if we were to disappear—they would simply assume.” He shrugged. “But if that bothers?—”

“It doesn’t,” Jamie blurted. While he didn’t particularly relish the idea that the entire Sluagh court might be imagining them having sex, he also didn’t want Bran to think he was repulsed by the idea, which he most definitely was not.

The look Bran was giving him made his blush even hotter.

“I dinna see a need to continue having inane conversations with every member of the Court of Shades,” Bran said. “If you’d like?—”

“Yes.” He blurted the word out. “Please,” Jamie added.

Bran’s lips twitched, and he led Jamie back through the courtyard, periodically replying to a comment here and there that Jamie mostly ignored or tried not to think about, his cheeks still warm.

He followed Bran blindly though the mossy stone halls until they stopped in front of a door. Bran let go of his hand, and Jamie almost protested. “Here you are,” the fae said, his voice oddly quiet and… something. Jamie wasn’t sure what, but he seemed… disappointed? Sad?

Jamie wanted to stick his hands in his pockets, but his fae-made trousers didn’t have any. He missed his jeans. “I—are you going back?” he asked. “To the party?”

Bran shook his head, his moss-green eyes watchful.

“You could… stay? For a bit, anyway. I—Someone should probably explain to me what just happened.”

Bran’s lips twitched. “If you like.”

“I—yes. If you want, that is.”

Bran nodded, and Jamie pushed open his door, walking inside, uncertain about what he wanted to happen. Someone had put a vase of flowers on a table beside the bed—but it seemed that Patch had, indeed, given up on Jamie, as thegealach marcaichewas nowhere to be seen.

Jamie kept his head down and turned to look out the window, nervous, anxious, and a little disappointed that Patch had flown off, although that was a secondary concern at that moment. “So what happens now?” he asked. “Since the threadbond is complete, I mean.”

He heard Bran close the door and move through the room, although he made as little noise in this form as he had in his human one, walking barefoot through Jamie’s tiny apartment. “That’s mostly up to you,” Bran answered. “Where you want to go. How—close you want me to be.”

I want you literally right next to me, Jamie couldn’t help but think.I want your hand back in mine.But would Bran be willing to live in the human world, now that he had a choice? Away from his family and the obligations that he clearly had and that no one would explain to Jamie?

Jamie supposed that raised the opposing question, as well—would he be willing to live in the fae world just to stay close to Bran? It wasn’t an easy question. He was building a life, a career. He had his dissertation and Trixie and Rob and his half-siblings, whom he wanted someday to be able to reconnect with, since it wasn’t their fault their father was a raging, abusive alcoholic.

Maybe there was some way to do both?

If Bran was even interested in the possibility, really. The idea that he was putting it on Jamie—it sounded on the one hand like he might be interested in something more than just… what? Jamie didn’t know what a threadbond was supposed to be like. Did they have to be within a few miles of each other? In the same world?

“What does that mean?” he wanted to know. “Like, is there a… distance limit? You have to stay within five miles or something?”

“No,” Bran replied, and he sounded oddly disappointed again. “The bond is complete. We dinna have to stay geographically close. Or even in the same world.”

“Oh.” Jamie blinked rapidly as he stared out the window at the night sky, full of unfamiliar and beautiful stars. “So we each go back to our lives, then?” The words tasted like ash in his mouth, bitter and burnt.

“If that’s what you want,” Bran replied.

Jamie made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t know the least thing about this,” he protested. “I don’t know how it works, I don’t know the rules, and I don’t know the expectations. Stop asking what I want. I don’t even know whatmy options are, so how can I know what Iwant?” Breathing hard, he set his hands on the ledge, staring down at them as though they’d somehow failed him.

“I—I dinna know, either,” Bran’s voice replied, his brogue thicker than normal. “You’re not a fae?—”

“That’s abundantly bloody clear, thanks,” Jamie snapped.

Bran was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, there might have been hurt in the words. “Not what I meant, Jamie. I dinna know how to explain, how to be around you. If you were a fae, I’d know what to do. But I dinna know if—I dinna know.”

“What would you do, then, if I were fae?” Jamie asked roughly, not quite ready to let go of his frustration.

Silence again, and Jamie wondered if he’d made Bran angry. At least that would mean that the fae actually cared.

Then Bran spoke again, although his voice was soft and hesitant and Jamie wasn’t sure what emotion underlay the words. “I’d come up behind you, put my hands on your back, and rest my cheek against your spine.”

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