Page 139 of Bound

Not just her. The family she’d lost.

He approached her slowly, his hand cupping her chin so she couldn’t shy away from him. “If there is not room here,” he began, his thumb skimming across her cheek. Gentling, before she even had a chance to frighten. “You need only say so. I will build us new rooms for new memories. If it is perhaps too painful to have us here together.”

Her eyes welled. They did that often. But she blinked, and the tears dissipated, and he found her against his chest once more.

He would not pretend it did not please him immensely, that she felt safe enough to seek comfort from him when it was needed. It was right, no matter how she fretted about mates and what he deserved.

Couldn’t Wren see she was more than enough? That she was made for him, and him for her?

She would. Someday. Even if they were wizened and wrinkled by that time.

“This is a home,” Wren mumbled against him. “Not a shrine. We can make it what it needs to be.”

His fingers skimmed down the back of her head, along the bumps and ridges of her plait. “I’ll not rush you,” he reminded her. “If you need it to stay the same for a while longer, you’ll hear no complaint from me.”

She gave a snort of laughter before shaking her head. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

Perhaps it should have stung, but if patience and goodwill were faults, they were ones he’d gladly own.

He reached for her, bringing her close as he leaned in slightly, the better to catch and hold her eye. “Do you mean this to be my home? Truly?”

He watched her swallow. Watched her eyes narrow, and he knew well that her mind was whirling with potential outcomes and meanings and undoubtedly her hand itched to twist into her braid. But he took it before it could make its journey. Squeezed it gently in reproach.

“I suppose I do,” she hedged. But while her words were vague, the grip she returned to his hand was not.

He hummed. “We shall see.”

He smiled at her. Watched her mouth drop open.

“What does that mean?”

His smile widened.

???

It meant a cart. With Kessa at the helm. The note had been delivered by Althorn, and if Braum had felt sorry that he and Wren would not be there for the initial introductions between families, that simply could not be helped.

He would not leave her. Not until she was fully well.

And perhaps not even then.

He was already making plans for the lots. The work that could wait, the rest that would mean hired hands to help until he could master all the responsibilities that pulled him in too many directions.

What he knew most was that he belonged here. In this home. With this woman.

He did not know when Kessa would come. He did not know if it would include an entourage of his parents—of Cyrras and the fledglings as they took what opportunity they could to meet his mate.

But instead, it was just her. The hesper was borrowed, for truly he did not have so many things in way of possessions. A cot. His trunk. All things that Cyrras could have helped her load, or she had seen to herself, simply because that was Kessa’s way.

She came down from the tall cart seat, her eyes alight as she scanned the surroundings.

“No greeting?”

Kessa finally glanced his way. “Oh. Hello.” She waved her hand toward the back of the cart. “Your things.”

Then her attention was back, lingering over the animals, the stable.

The door that was carefully closed. He hadn’t told Wren of his plans. He could only imagine the state she would work herself into full of the unknowns he couldn’t answer for her. But this... this was something real. A choice she could make for herself, and one he would not foist upon her.

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