Mar
And it was not like there was any need for it; Valgar was, if anything, more passionate with her than he had been in years. He wasn’t trying to compensate; it was like the more he got of Quincy, the more his inner fire awakened and the more he wanted of everything.
She’d noticed him at dinner, eating more heartily than a man approaching middle-age could possibly need to, though in all fairness, he was working quite hard and neither of them were getting as much sleep as usual.
Her knock seemed to echo in the empty corridor outside Quincy’s rooms, birdsong coming in through the windows lining the corridor. It’d seemed best to give the other omega some space to calm himself, and he’d chosen to break his fast alone that morning.
“Come in!” Quincy called out.
She pushed at the door, pausing when she caught sight of him at the table by the window with some sewing. It was winter work, but Quincy said it helped him think.
“Mar,” he said, mouth twisting a bit. “Would you like some tea?”
A few minutes passed talking of inconsequential matters and waiting for Quincy’s servant to retun.
But then they were alone, and Quincy met her eyes and told her, “I know you don’t want an apology, but I can’t help but feel I have trespassed.”
“With your feelings?”
Quincy’s throat worked as he sipped at his drink. “Yes,” he said at last, eyes low.
“Then so have I.”
His head shot up, his sharp eyebrows furrowing. She held his gaze, drinking a bit herself and waiting him out.
“I don’t...”
“I said I didn’t mind, but what I meant is that I feel it as well,” Mar told him.
“Oh.” Quincy’s shoulders fell. “So it’s the bonds?”
It was true, of course, but it wasn’t the whole truth.
She couldn’t have said how she knew, but it didn’t make it any less so.
“Perhaps the bond was the invitation,” she said at last. “But when you and Valgar arrived, you were bonded and nothing more. You would barely let him see you. Trust was a choice, wasn’t it?
And I told you; I chose you, and this...
” She offered a smile she couldn’t quite hold in place.
The last thing she wanted was to make Quincy feel uncomfortable.
“It’s another invitation, I suppose. From me to you, and if you’d prefer not to accept, I will be mindful my next one is for a walk in the gardens instead. ”
Quincy bit one of the thin salty biscuits he favoured and chewed carefully, gaze fixed out the window.
There were a pair of swallows circling each other across the clear blue sky.
Mar wondered if one of them had been injured and the other had delayed their departure for warmer climates so they could go together.