Page 33 of Bound to the Fae Assassin

Hang it all, she was going to leave.

Maybe that was for the best. He wasn’t made of stone, and the longer she stayed…

“Just a little company, perhaps,” he suggested, trying not to sound desperate. “The palace is filled with servants and sound. Out here there is nothing but the breathing of the animals.”

“They like you,” she said.

“Animals are under my domain,” he said lazily.

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“Just like plants are under yours,” he said, wondering how she could not understand this most obvious element of magic.

Her eyes widened slightly, but she nodded.

“Have you learned nothing of your own magic?” he asked.

“When I was small, my mother said it was not strong enough to warrant training,” she explained. “I think maybe she didn’t want to send me to the academy and lose my hands in the bakery. They were never blessed with more children.”

He understood they had little coin, and choices had to be made. But the idea still infuriated him.

“They brought on Jericho because they were shorthanded,” he guessed.

“We needed the help,” she agreed, looking almost miserable, as if there were more.

“What?” he asked. “Why do you look like that?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she told him. “You’ve never been poor.”

“Try me,” he said.

He half expected her to laugh it off and make her excuses.

Instead, her eyes met his in the semi-darkness.

“I’m pretty sure they used to hope he would ask for my hand,” she admitted. “Then he could live here, and they wouldn’t have to pay him. He would be a part owner instead.”

“And now what do they hope?” he asked.

She looked at him and lifted her eyebrows, as if it were obvious.

“What?” he asked.

“You come here, with your horse and your story of being from Greenfields,” she said. “And they believe that you want to be a baker one day.”

He should have felt offended, but somehow, he wasn’t. His imagination laid out the life in front of him. A simple wedding, Farrow waiting for him on a straw mattress, her bright hair spread across the blanket, a sea of pleasure, her belly swollen with his child, a simple life among the fragrant loaves in the bakery.

After all he had seen, it was a comfort to picture it. It was a vision free of war, intrigue, and cruelty.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him quietly.

“You have told me what others want for you,” he told her. “I was merely wondering what you hope for yourself.”

Her eyes met his again. This time, he saw his own curiosity reflected back at him, perhaps seeing a version of her world with him in it.

Moonlight caressed her hair and the right side of her face, clearly as delighted with her as he was.

He lifted his hand and traced its path down her cheek, to her neck.

---