Page 290 of Primal Bonds

“You’re not going alone.” That was Tiago.

She toyed with a piece of bread. She couldn’t lie to them. Fada could scent a lie, and besides, it would make her violently ill. It had something to do with their fae blood, even though it was just a trace.

So instead, she went on the attack. “Look, I just want to get away, all right?”

“Not alone.” Dion’s stern look was spoiled by his tiny daughter wriggling away from her mama and onto the floor.

“Up, Papai.” Brisa patted his thigh, a sprite in a pink-and-yellow striped dress, her fine gold hair caught up in two pigtails, her eyes the same warm amber as Cleia’s.

His hard face softened. “Of course, menina.” He cuddled her to his chest.

“You’ll take a friend.” Tiago again. “Davi would be happy to—”

“Deus.” Rosana glared at him. “What part of getting away don’t you understand? I’m going. Alone.”

Most of the clan had cleared out by now, but those still in the dining hall glanced her way.

“Dion.” Cleia spoke in her throaty voice. “It’s only one day.”

The sun fae queen was blindingly beautiful, with large tip-tilted eyes, shoulder-length hair in shimmering shades of gold, silver and copper, and a fae’s pointed chin and ears. Rosana still wasn’t sure how her hardheaded oldest brother had won Cleia’s heart, but without the older woman to smooth things over, she just might’ve left the clan by now like her two middle brothers had.

Dion turned an irritated look on his mate. Their gazes locked, the two of them communing through their bond—not in words, but in some deeper way that only mated pairs could.

Alesia touched Rosana’s back. “Take a breath, sweetheart.”

Rosana sent her a guilty glance. The dryad was a solitary fae, more comfortable with plants than people, and she hated arguments.

“Desculpe-me,” she muttered, and took a breath. Tiago’s mate had that effect on people. Half-wild with an elfin face and mass of sun-streaked brown curls, the dryad radiated an earth-mama calm.

“Talk to them,” Alesia added. “Please? Because they’ll listen to you. Right, Tiago?” She reached across Rosana to squeeze his hand.

“Sim, sim,” he grumbled.

Rosana took another breath. Alesia was right. If she wanted Dion and Tiago to see her as an adult, then she had to show them she was calm. Mature.

And able to run her own fucking life.

Dion fingered a lock of his mate’s sun-colored hair. “I’m her alpha,” he told Cleia. “If I say she stays, then she stays.”

“Of course,” the queen agreed. “But it’s just one day. And Rosana’s a smart, capable woman. She’s not a child anymore.”

Dion shook his head.

Rosana gritted her teeth and helped herself to a slice of the thick peasant bread. She drizzled olive oil on it and tore off a piece to eat.

Calm. Mature. In control.

“I did you the courtesy of informing you where I’ll be,” she said. “But I’m not asking your permission. I’m an adult now. I don’t need the alpha’s okay to leave the base, as long as I fulfil my duties to the clan.”

“Try it,” Tiago invited, “and you’ll find yourself with two bodyguards on your ass everywhere you go.”

“Since when did you become my dad?” she snarled back. She’d expected better of him. Just five years older than her, they’d once been partners-in-crime, united against Isa and their three much older brothers when it came to childish pranks.

Dion raised a staying hand. “I just don’t understand why you have to go alone.”

“I’m twenty-two turns of the sun. When Tiago was my age, did you make him take a babysitter every time he left the base?”

“Of course not. He’s a man.”

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