Page 37 of Room for Three
Jamie's eyes held his. "You risked something to save me."
Azelon looked away, uncomfortable with the gratitude in the human's voice. "You were injured defending my charge. It was my responsibility."
"Is that all?" Jamie asked.
Azelon's tail flicked with irritation. "What else should there be?"
Jamie studied him for a long moment, long enough that Azelon had to fight the urge to shift under his scrutiny.
"You should rest," Azelon said. "Go back to sleep."
Sadly, it didn't seem like Jamie felt at all inclined to heed his advice. "Why are you being so evasive?"
Azelon's jaw tightened. "What is it that you want me to say?"
"Whatever you're not saying." Jamie held his gaze steadily. "During the healing, I felt... Your concern. Your conflict. You feel things very deeply."
Azelon turned away sharply. The connection had revealed too much.
"I respect your strength," he said finally, choosing his words with care. "Your stability. The way you've handled Corin's chaos."
"And?"
"I find myself..." Azelon began, then stopped, frustrated by his own inability to express the tangled mess of emotions. "You arrived here three days ago and disrupted our whole lives. Corinresponds to you in ways he never did with me. The store, this entire situation… everything changed the moment you appeared."
"And that bothers you."
"Yes." Azelon turned to face Jamie again. "No. I don't know."
The admission of uncertainty felt like failure. Tideborn culture valued clarity, conviction, purpose. Doubt was weakness. Confusion was childish.
Jamie's expression softened. "Things changed for me too. A week ago I was living a normal life on earth. Now I'm in another world with two fae creatures."
"We're not the same species," Azelon corrected automatically. "Tideborn are distinct from—" He broke off at Jamie's small smile. "That's not the point."
"No," Jamie agreed. "The point is that sometimes change happens whether we want it or not. The question is what we do with it."
Azelon suspected they were no longer talking about Jamie's arrival.
"I should change your bandages," he said, deliberately shifting focus to something tangible, practical. "The healing addressed the infection, but the wound still needs care."
Jamie allowed the subject change, though his eyes suggested he recognized the fresh evasion. "Alright."
Azelon gathered fresh bandages and a basin of warm water that the store had thoughtfully provided. The building seemedincreasingly attuned to their needs, anticipating requirements before they were voiced.
Just like its owner, who somehow anticipated the words people tried to avoid saying.
"This may be uncomfortable," Azelon warned as he carefully began removing the old bandages.
Jamie inhaled sharply but made no other sound as the cloth was pulled away from his healing wound. The injury looked significantly better than it had before the ritual—the angry red had faded to pink, the edges already knitting together.
Azelon dampened a cloth and gently cleaned the area. The intimacy of the task wasn't lost on him. Tideborn rarely touched outside of specific circumstances—ritual healing, combat training, or between bonded pairs.
Yet here he was, tending to a human he'd known for mere days.
Jamie watched him work, his breathing controlled and steady despite what must have been considerable discomfort.
"Where's Corin?" he asked.
