Fate (Deridia #11)

7.2

“You are not going to the Hall, are you? We have more to discuss before we meet with Vandran.”

It had not occurred to her to attempt anything of the sort, but it was telling that he thought her as impulsive as that. “No,” she promised.

Held out her hand.

And she did not blink at him slowly in the way Mama said she did to urge Da to give her whatever she wanted. Only smiled and waited.

Expecting that he would close the distance between them. That he would follow, because she asked it of him.

And he could sigh if he liked. And he could be the first to pass through the door as if he was the one leading her somewhere. He nodded to her father as they passed, and she smiled and held up her hand, and suppressed her laughter as Lucian pulled her out the workshop door.

Only to cross his arms and lean against the building as he quirked a brow and waited for her to declare her intentions.

But she didn’t. Just fluttered her wings twice, then pushed upward. She would not pretend that the suns were good for her head, but the air was good. A crisp day, tinged with the winter that was supposed to be passed. Grey clouds were pushing in from the north, but they needn’t be gone long. The rest of the sky was clear and bright, and she glided easily far above the city by the time Lucian caught up to her.

Talking was a useful venture when the winds caught and carried all sound away. Parents often taught signals with their hands to direct wayward fledglings on what they should do and where they should go. But they were unique within families, carried on and passed down, so beyond a simple wave to follow along, she did not bother to say more.

It was cold. Always was, up here. How many times had Mama chided about wraps and scarves and even a hat if she meant to go on one of these flights?

Had Lucian been subjected to the same in his early years? Or had his parents been so preoccupied with their own priorities they hadn’t cared if their young son got chilled ears and frozen fingers?

It made her ache. Made her fly a little faster so she could wrap her arms about him and promise herself that she would care about those things. That even if it felt strange at first, he would come to find it common. That he would look back and find his upbringing as bewildering as she did.

Or maybe she was wrong. And his parents were not as awful as they seemed. That they loved him in their way, that he was cared for and nurtured. Loved.

Even... even if he was not liked.

She frowned to herself and pushed further. Welcomed the slight burn in her wings because she’d grown sedentary of late. She glanced behind her, wanting to ensure Lucian was nearby. She needn’t have worried—his wings were so large when they spread outward he was impossible to miss. A dark smudge against a light sky, his eyes darting every which way. What dangers he imagined they’d find, she couldn’t say. Or perhaps he was merely trying to get a hint of their destination.

It seemed more than obvious to her. Away from the piers—she was not looking for company. The docks where ships came into the cove and unloaded their wares. It would bustle in preparation for the upcoming markets. Merchants and Proctors with their lists and pens. Carts that would be filled and hesper with their heads down low as they waited to pull everything into the city itself.

So she went along the coast. Where the beaches were small—more rock than sand.

Then further still. To the small inlet where the cliffs gentled. Then curved. Eased downward and there was a long stretch of sand where the tide had retreated for the moment.

She landed, the sand soft beneath her. The wind was crisp, pushing the clouds over the suns. But the sea was no less beautiful, even if it appeared more grey than its usual blue-green.

Lucian landed close by, eyes already hard as he approached her. “If you are going to suggest one of your dips, I will bury you in this sand until you agree to return home.”

She wasn’t going to warm all over to hear their loft referred to as home. But she might have smiled absurdly wide and done a little twirl because she was happy.

Which he surely could feel. Even if he continued to look at her dubiously when she suddenly sat on the sand and unlaced her boots. Then removed her stockings, which took very little time at all.

While he stood, looming and glaring, as if she was doing something scandalous. “Sit,” she suggested, patting the sand beside her. “I mean to stay awhile.”

He glanced up at the sky, and she knew what he saw. A day that was going to rain later on. A mate he could not begin to understand.

He did sit. Every movement begrudging as he did so. His shoulders were stiff, his face lined with tension, and he looked so miserably unhappy at it she could not help the sudden burst of laughter that earned her another of his glares.

But it did not dissuade her. The day was too pretty, and if she grew cold, it only meant that she could scoot a little nearer and wrap herself about him. Which, she noted as she did precisely that, did not even bring a sigh from him as he brought his arm about her in turn.

“So,” she began, feeling this a far better arrangement for their talk. No sound of the workroom below them. No worry about fathers on either side. Just them. “You think I don’t like you?”

He waited a moment before answering. “That is not what I said.”

“True,” she agreed, then turned her face so she might look at him rather than out at the sea. The waves lapped greedily at the shore, easing further up with each push and pull. “But you worried about it.” He gave no answer, but his expression was response enough. “Why?”

Lucian stared out at the sea for a long while. And she let him. It was all right, because she could feel him working out what he might say, how much he wanted to share with her. She did not expect him to be able to do it all at once.

“There is a difference,” he began at last. “Between commitment and... liking. Affection,” he amended. “I was willing to honour my commitments from the start, but I’ll not pretend that I have been... easy.”

She snorted, just a little, and she was sorry for it when she caught the glimmer or hurt there. He was vulnerable, her mate. All hard edges and sharp words, but remarkably sensitive to her slightest displeasure.

Firen smoothed her hand down his side and took his hand in hers. “I was eager for change,” she commented, rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand softly. “You were not. I do not blame you for finding it a difficult transition.”

Most particularly when he would lose much. And she...

A lump settled in her throat. “I like how you are with my family. I like that you are willing to live in a loft. I like that you came after me. That you forgave me each time I ran off. That our mating means something to you.” She leaned in closer, because even if she could say it aloud, it still felt private and meant entirely for them. “I like the things you do with me in our bed. I like when I can make you smile. That they’re rare and precious when I get to see one.” He ducked his head, and she was distinctly aware she had embarrassed him.

But there was something else. Something that tugged at her through the bond. Made her reach for his face and turn it back to her. “I think you had some preconceptions about me. And as much as I don’t wish to admit it, I had plenty about you.”

He rolled his eyes, but then brought his hand to capture the one holding onto his cheek. “You keep waiting for me to leave you.”

She rolled her shoulders and her feathers rose briefly before she flushed and forced them back down. “I just don’t think that I mean as much to you as you do to me. I feel like at any moment you’ll have had enough and be back in your tower and...” They were the fears she tried to soothe in the dark before sleep came. When she had to recite all the ways that she was fine and he was there, and his arm was about her middle and they’d loved one another well so he wouldn’t go, it wouldn’t be the next morning that he’d leave her. “I couldn’t follow.” It was a confession. One bitten out from a throat too tight with emotion, and she huddled into his side, allowing him to support her. “Please don’t go back.”

He laughed. It was not a mocking sound, but a sudden burst of sound that left her scrambling so she could better make sense of him.

“I have gone, every day, to the Halls. Talked and cajoled with men that some I respect, and others I despised. So that one of them would even consider accepting me. Accepting us.” He grasped hold of her waist and pulled her back to him. “You think I would do this just to go back and beg my father to take me back? To set you aside and leave you behind?”

Her throat burned and so did her eyes, and it had little to do with the salty breeze.

Far more because of the sudden shame that bloomed inside of her. That somewhere along the way, she’d started expecting the very worst of him. Looked at his family and assumed he was too much like them rather than look at the way he treated her. The care he took of her. And allow those parts to shape her opinion of him.

He nuzzled against her cheek, then brought his lips closer to her ear. “How can you say that you like me when you still expect so little of me?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and clutched him to her. “I am sorry,” she choked out, and she meant it. She was not sinless in this. She was stubborn and fanciful, and she needed to be loyal to him. As fiercely as she held to her own family, she had to do the same for him. Against all others.

And expect the same of him.

He did not accept her apology. Not with words, at least. But he smoothed his hand through her wind-blown hair. Rubbed at the back of her skull in a way that made her want to cry all the more because it was the precise spot that ached so badly, and his fingers felt like magic as they worked and rubbed the tension out of her. “I will give you a home,” Lucian murmured softly. “One where you will feel safe. Where you will not endure talks of old magics and severing bonds.” He skimmed his lips against her cheekbone. “They are my burden, not yours. I should not have subjected you to them. I am sorry for it. For how they frightened you.” He huffed out a breath, and it was warm while her cheek was cold. “For the doubt they caused.”

It was not only his family that had caused that. While Lucian might have known he would honour her, honour their bond, he’d done little to communicate that from the start. He’d let her think her presence a nuisance rather than a balm, let her think he was opposed to anything that meant moving away from his ancestral tower.

She could chide him for it now. Could remind him of the ways he’d hurt her. But she was tired of that. Some wounds needed to stop being picked out so they might heal, and she thought the first night of theirs was one of them. They’d both made mistakes. Been imperfect and uncertain of one another, and they could dwell there. Mistrustful and full of blame. Or...

“I’d like that,” Firen answered, smiling at him and finding it perfectly genuine. She would go with him. To meet this Vandran and to do all the things he told her to do when dealing with one of his lot. She would not even begrudge him for it.

And maybe they would not get to sleep in her playroom any longer, playing at a life that might have been hers if her mate was different. If his abilities and training left him open to learning smith-craft.

But this was the one she had, and she had to stop dreaming about some other man. The one that aligned so perfectly with her there would be no strain. No pains as they grew and accommodated one another.

He relaxed against her. Pulled her to him and nestled her into his side as they sat in the sand. As they watched, the waves grow and creep. Push and pull. Over and over.

A bit like them, she supposed.

“I mean to take care of you,” Lucian continued. “I am trying.”

Firen nestled closer, and if her hair was blowing in his way, if her wings rustled too much in the wind and bothered him, he said nothing of it. “I know. And I thank you for it.”

He grunted. And if there was more she ought to say, she did not know what it should have been. The bond was tranquil between them. Not pressing at them to love, to consummate their understanding with something physical. It was content with holding. With sitting. With watching as she buried her toes in the sand and pulled them free again, while Lucian made little sounds of displeasure each time she did so.

He would be the one beating sand out of his boots after it worked its way through the laces and into his stockings. And she’d help him. Maybe.

“Firen,” he asked at last, when her cheeks were cold but her heart was warm.

“Hmm?”

“Why are we here?”

She laughed lightly and shook her head. “Because Da would bring us here. Probably because Mama asked him to, and she wanted the house to herself for a while. At least that’s my guess now that I’m thinking about it. But I didn’t know at the time, of course. He’d just announce that we were off on an adventure, and don’t bother with shoes because we’d only have to clean them later.” She tapped her bare foot lightly against his covered one. “And we’d spend all morning looking for shells. Or there was the time the boys found great sheets of seaweed and try to wrap me in it until I screamed. Then Da taught me how to hit. Then told me not to and made the boys spend the rest of our time playing whatever game I wanted.” She smiled softly at the memory. “A fair trade, I think. That was still one of the best days I can remember.”

She waited, hoping that Lucian would offer a similar story. Something light-hearted. Something that meant that he hadn’t only known harsh words and lonely rooms during his upbringing.

But he was silent. And when she turned her head to look up at him, his jaw was tight. Remained that way, even when she reached up with her fingertips to smooth against it. “Should I not tell you these things?”

He swallowed, his eyes dark and grey. “No. Why would you ask that?”

She would not impose any sort of reason at all. Not when she so often seemed to get it wrong. “I don’t know. Maybe you don’t like stories about siblings when you have none.” That would not be unheard of. She had noticed how some of her market friends got a little wistful, a little sad, when she prattled on too long about her home life. Wren especially. Or she used to, anyway.

He shifted. Not away from her, but enough that she knew it took some effort on his part to remain in place. “There were two fledglings. Before me. Brothers, I think, if you can call them that. They did not live very long.”

Her throat ached. For him, and even for Ellena. Because loss was a terrible thing. Could make one grow cold inside.

She did not say she was sorry, but she was. To live in that shadow must have been a terrible sort of grief, most especially when Lucian had been too young to understand the reason.

“I love my mother,” Lucian reiterated, but it felt less like he was throwing it at her. A more wistful sort of remembrance. “I do not want her to lose another child.”

She wanted to say that Ellena made that choice with her own behaviour. That Lucian—and by extension, Firen herself—were not required to put up with just anything in order to keep her from that pain.

But that was harsh. Too harsh when she was talking with her own mate. Who spoke of his mother with the tone of one who had lost her. Mourned for her. He never sounded like that regarding his father. What love he had seemed to belong only to his mother.

He’d been disappointed. In Firen.

For not being more patient.

And he’d been trying with her family. And no matter the reasons she could throw at the guilt that bubbled within her—that his was mean and spoke of horrible, demented things so she could speak however she wanted about them and to them and it should make no difference at all.

It did.

Firen turned, disliking how it pulled one side of her face into the cold, but needing to look at him. “How can I help with this? Would it... do you want me to meet with her? Or simply give you time to go yourself?” She smiled at him, thin and full of self-deprecation. “I would promise not to leave. Not without you, that is.”

He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his attention was fixed out on the waves, where foam was beginning to form as it tussled in the surf. “Our priority is Vandran,” he said at last. “Securing lodging.”

She opened her mouth to remind him they had a room as long as they’d want of it, but she closed it again. He wanted to provide it for her. For them. Wanted it to be theirs, tied though it was to a job she knew so little about.

“All right,” she agreed with a nod. “When?”

Lucian sighed as the wind blew harder, her hair already loosened from its braid blowing fiercely about them. She smiled a little and tried to manage it and hold on to her ribbon all at once, but it was a losing battle, so she simply held it and rolled her shoulders as she waited for him to answer.

But he didn’t.

He huffed out a breath and shifted, pulling her between his legs so he had access to the unruly mass.

His hands did not move with a certainty that suggested he was practised in the art of a woman’s tresses, but he was determined. First to smooth it all back until he could clasp it with one hand. Then he twisted, first one way, then the other, until it was coiled at the nape of her neck in some semblance of order. What he expected a single ribbon to accomplish, she hadn’t the least idea, but she handed it over demurely to allow him to wrestle with the problem at his leisure.

The coil dropped, and he settled on tying the ribbon at her neck, where at least the majority was out of her face and could not whip at him as they sat together.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Lucian answered at last, trying helplessly to smooth out the tangles he undoubtedly found. It needed a proper combing and she wouldn’t pretend otherwise. But it could wait, and she eased back further, tucking her wings as best she could so as not to bother him. This was a pleasant posture. Would have been better still tucked in their bed with warm cups of tea, the blankets tangled about them while Lucian took all the pillows for himself. But that was a fair trade, since she got to use him as the largest pillow of all.

“All right,” Firen agreed. “Will it be... formal?” What she was really asking was if they were going to have to make another visit to the tailor. While the thought should have thrilled her, there was instead a lump of memory that hurt if she poked at it.

He smoothed his hand down her arm until he reached her hand. “No. Anything from your own wardrobe will be perfectly sufficient.” He picked it up, turning it this way and that, before he wrapped his hand about the whole of it. “You are cold,” he murmured into her ear. A warning, she thought. That he would soon insist they leave. Which was not a bad thing, not when they would go home again.

“Anything?” she teased, and felt him tense, felt herself shiver when his lips found her ear, nibbling lightly before he pulled back enough just so he could whisper.

“Are those part of the wiles you intend to utilise? To be liked?” His other arm came about her middle, holding her to him. And she really should protest his insinuations, but found that she couldn’t. He was teasing her. The bond was warm and urgent, but did not speak of a true resentment for any part of her nature. Of her body, for that matter. “Perhaps I shall have to sort through your clothing. Leave you only what is respectable.”

She reached up and cupped his cheek in an awkward pose, given his position behind her. “I should like to see you try.”

Which really should not have sounded as much of a challenge as she did. There was nothing wrong with her clothing—it had all been made by her own hands as soon as she’d been old enough to take over that chore from Mama.

He rumbled behind her.

Not a growl.

But...

A purr.

He hadn’t done it before, and she wasn’t sure what had prompted it now. But it was low and soothing, and it made her want to burrow further into his chest in want of more of it. To feel the reverberation against her cheek, to feel his skin, to touch him all over.

He was seducing her. Perhaps it was not intentional, or perhaps it was how he meant to win this game. She wasn’t sure which, and she wasn’t certain she cared.

Not when there was suddenly the desire to kiss him. To hold him to her so she could coax more of that rumble from his throat.

Coax a great many things from him.

“If we had a place of our own,” Lucian murmured against her skin, keeping her just far enough that she could not complete her aim and kiss him thoroughly. “I would take you home. And I would love you until you forgot your tired eyes and pained head and had a very different sort of sleep.”

Her eyes widened, because she had forgotten both those things already and he hadn’t even tried.

“We’re quite alone here,” she cajoled, her hand skimming up his thigh. She could not reach him properly, not the part of him that the bond insisted was the best place for her to touch, but he caught her wrist anyway, capturing it and holding it to her middle instead.

“If sand can creep into my boots, I hate to think what it would do to my mate’s more delicate areas.” Firen gave a rueful sort of smile in agreement, but she could not deny a slight disappointment that they would not even try.

She sighed. The urge to argue was there, to seduce and cajole simply to prove that she could. But he was taking care of her. Which she supposed, in a begrudging sort of way, she appreciated.

She did wish the bond would stop thrumming. Heating her blood and reminding her how good it would feel to be with him again.

Patience was important. Mama had always said so. She just didn’t know it would include having one’s own mate.

“Stop wriggling ,” Lucian complained, and she laughed softly, reaching for her boots. The stockings she’d safely shoved inside. She didn’t bother putting them on again, just got to her feet instead. Held out her hand to help him up. Not that he needed it, but it felt a kind gesture after she’d teased him.

He took her hand anyway, although he kept his weight from her, using his wings to push himself upward instead. Then pulled her back into him. “Will you be patient? Until tonight?”

Firen sighed, easing against him. Absorbing his warmth while she could. It would be a cold flight home. A difficult one, too, now that the winds were going to prove an impediment rather than an aid. “No,” Firen answered honestly. “But I’ll try not to tug at the bond too much.”

There was his purr again. The rumble that sent shivers all over her. An agreement and a chastisement all at once. “If we had our own home,” Lucian continued, as if it didn’t make it worse, did not make her want him more when he spoke to her so low, his voice a rasp of sound that caught and settled into her hidden places. “I would fill you a hot bath. I would wash you all over and make certain every speck of this wretched sand was off of you.” He placed a kiss on her neck, his hand flat against her as he pulled her closer still. “Then I would wrap you in linens and take you to our bed. One that did not have a horrid seam down the middle, but a proper one. Meant for the two of us.”

“You are not being fair,” Firen argued. He should not be teasing her like this. Stirring her up, only to make her wait.

He chuckled, his lips skimming across her cold cheek. “You wriggled. It seems perfectly fair to me.” He nuzzled into her, and it was sweet and solely theirs, and she loved him so much in that moment. Never mind the heating of her blood. It was something else. Something that came of care and attention. His sweetness.

That tended to look like something else entirely if she did not pay enough notice.

But she did now.

“There’s a bath at home,” she expressed hopefully. “We could still...”

He nipped at her jaw, and she quieted. “With your parents so close about? I think not.”

He squeezed her tightly against him. “Just let it be an inducement. For trying our hardest to settle on our own.”

“I didn’t argue about that!” It was a feeble protest, one bit out from frustration and yes, a great deal of want.

“Good. Now you won’t even want to.”

One more kiss to her cheek. One more pulse of the bond that bled into other pulses that were even more a distraction.

It should have helped that he felt it, too. Should have made it easier that she did not have to bear those feelings alone.

Except that it didn’t.

To want. To be wanted in return.

And to have to go home and pretend like everything was fine...

It was a new sort of torment, and she balled her hands into fists as Lucian stepped back from her.

Dared to smirk at her.

“I will not add this to my list,” she accused. “I do not like this at all!”

He nodded, hovering above her as he waited for her to join him. “Good. Help me get lodging for us, then, so I can make good on my promises.”

Not fantasies. Not daydreams of a different life.

Promises.

Of a hot bath and fresh linens, and loving afterward.

It was her turn to glare, to take to the air and fly too near to him so she could kick at him. Because he was smirking in the sort of way her brother might when they both knew he was teasing her and yet still she was bothered, and it was a wretched thing.

Except different.

Because this time he could grab hold of her. Could wrap her in his arms and suddenly it wasn’t her flying at all, but just him. Supporting her weight, keeping her moving. Holding her close and manoeuvring them toward home.

Not home.

Sort of home.

And she would not sit and stew that their alone time would have to wait. She would make supper. After she left him to get all the sand out of his boots on his own.

Because she was not a perfect mate, and she would not pretend to be.