Page 128 of Bound

Da, too. When she wasn’t being stubborn and let him.

And now there was Braum. Steady, careful, Braum. That would live in the stable like a hesper if it meant he could be close to her. To take on the tasks too dangerous and the ones she was too unskilled to manage on her own.

There was still that persistent, nagging voice that she could manage. That she didn’t need him.

But it had become an irritant more than a counsellor over these last months. Twisting her up inside as she fought down her growing admiration for him. It would only hurt her, after all. To think well of him and then inevitably be disappointed.

Cowardly. That’s what it was. Tucking herself away in a fortress of her own fears and cherished solitude.

He thought she might hate him. Always so careful of her wants, her freedoms. Playing the delicate game of knowing when to push, when to press, and when to allow her the space to miss him.

If he was a seducer, then he had earned his prize. With patience and perseverance. Chipping away at her armaments until there was just... her.

Lying in her mother’s bed. In nothing but a flimsy shift and bandages.

While he leaned close. Touched her.

And she... trusted him.

With herself. That he would not do what she didn’t want. Not because he was so noble as to not want it for himself, but because he would never, ever hurt her. To do so was to hurt a piece of himself.

Because...

He was her mate.

She chewed at her lip, hard.

Her mate.

Not the one that some invisible tendrils had bound her to. Born of blood and instinct.

Instead, it was care and patience and quiet moments underneath a tree. Tucked away on a porch. Peaceful talks and yes, some difficult ones.

If she was going to choose one...

If she wanted one, which... which maybe she did...

She’d want it to be him.

“Hate you?” she rasped out, her throat too tight and her mouth too dry, and her heart beating wildly in her chest. “I didn’t know how to ask you to stay.”

She had never seen him smile that way. It started slowly, as her words sank into him, then her meaning. And those shadows that lingered, the sadness and the concern began to thaw, leaving a brightness that had not been there before.

“Oh really?” he breathed, and there was a hint of teasing to him that made her smile in turn. “And here I thought for certain you were going to fight me to the last.”

Wren hummed, just a little. “I fell off my house,” she reminded him. “I might be stubborn, but I’m not so foolish I can’t admit I shouldn’t do all this on my own. Not if I want to live to the next time.”

Braum’s expression sobered, and she was sorry for it. She’d wanted to be truthful, for him to see that she saw the seriousness of her fall and the danger she’d been in, but she did not like the way his face clouded, as if... as imagining the outcome very differently.

Not finding a bruised and battered mate, but a dead one.

Because he’d been kind and thoughtful, and listened to her when she said she wanted nothing to do with that mating business.

She opened her mouth to apologise. Again. But she stopped herself. He’d accepted none of it when she’d tried before, but perhaps... perhaps she hadn’t approached it correctly. It had been pity, mostly. Trying to show she had some compassion for his situation, as if it was his alone. Not shared. Certainly not.

Her eyes blurred, and she reached out to him. Her fingers were clumsy and the touch was not the soft brush against his cheek she meant for it to be. It was stilted, and she paused too long about his cheekbone, but he was very still and looked at her, and he did not move away from her. That was something. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” she offered. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you.”

How many tears had she shed in his presence? She couldn’t begin to recall. Too many—not for the hurts she’d shared, but for the embarrassment of reactions she wished she could recall. Of wounds that should have healed years before. For all her talk of compartments and keeping her life carefully separated into before and afters, she’d picked at each wound in turn. Over and over as she lay in her bed, reproaching herself, hating herself. Hating a nameless, faceless woman that had the audacity to take her father away.

---