3. Healer
Checking should not include waking her.
But checking evidently involved Athan rolling over in the bed to count her breaths and, occasionally, creep his hand against her neck so he might better feel her pulse beneath his fingers.
She was too tired to protest the first time, certain she was imagining it was happening at all.
The second, the first tendrils of annoyance overcame her exhaustion.
By the third, she awoke long enough to set her hand against his abdomen so she might push him away.
She didn’t. Couldn’t. Not when he was built so solidly, but it earned her a sigh as he moved back—not nearly enough. Not back to his side of the bed where he might sleep and stop his fussing.
“You’re not my healer,” she reminded him, and tried to ignore the hint of pain that filtered through the bond.
“I am your mate,” he murmured back. “Which makes this even more important.”
It didn’t. Or it shouldn’t. Or...
She didn’t know.
Only that guilt won in the end, so she kept still and let him do as he pleased, especially if it meant he’d allow her to sleep awhile longer.
Then a new sort of guilt settled when she rolled over and he was not there. Wasn’t fussing, either. She blinked, sitting upright and trying to make sense of where she was and where he might have gone.
Light pushed through the shutters, bright and insistent.
The hour had mattered little, aside from invitations to dine with her parents or the extended family. The rest of the days were her own, to use or squander at will.
What were they like for a healer? Surely he could not laze about, even with a new mate settled in beside him.
A knot settled in her throat when she realised this might be the time to make her quiet escape. To dress as quickly as she could and open the window and see if the opening was large enough for her to slip through.
She’d go home. Cry to her mother.
And then...
She should do it.
She could see her garments neatly in their pile, situated on top of the chest where Athan held his own clothes.
It would hurt him. Her leaving.
Orma did not know why it should, but it would.
She should do something. Other than slipping away like the coward she was. Dress, at least. Or go to the washroom? She could make it there herself. She was not the invalid he thought her to be.
The door opened before she could decide. She thought he would be fully dressed, ready to approach with the stiff smile she was so used to when a healer came to her bedside.
But he wasn’t. He wore the nightclothes he’d donned before, his hair rumpled from what sleep he’d managed to get in between his checks .
She shouldn’t be cross about it. It meant he cared, even if only because of the bond nestled safely in his chest.
Some of the ties had loosened in his sleep, allowing her a glimpse of the subtle glow to his skin where it lived. A shimmer.
She fought down the strange impulse to beckon him closer so she might undo the laces even further. To see the spot for herself, to touch it. A bit of her, tucked away inside of him.
Those were dangerous thoughts. Unwelcome. Urges that surely were not her own.
Then why was it so hard to tamp them down? To remind herself to look away, to think of anything else but bonds and delicate threads, or else risk losing herself as she had the night before.
Which had worked out perfectly well, hadn’t it? She’d found him. And he was kind, and handsome, and so they were locked away in this room because he had a too-large beast as a companion, and she was too wretched to face it.
And he’d see she was afraid, and then he would offer to evict it once again, and that would be another wound upon her conscience.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, rubbing his hand through his hair and looking her over. She’d sat up, and the sleep-shirt she’d borrowed had suffered much the same fate as his own, one shoulder slipping off and revealing far more of her chest than was decent.
She paled, pulling at whatever fabric and ties she could reach.
It was ugly. She was ugly. Had been twisted and scarred and there was no pleasantly enticing bosom to peep out from the fabric. Just more questions and a history she wanted to bury as deep down as she could.
They’d cared about that early on. Minimal scarring, they’d promise her parents. Keep her pretty.
Then it hadn’t worked.
And they’d grown frustrated.
Better she be well than pretty, wouldn’t they agree?
And then she was neither, and her hands shook and her heart raced, and Athan was coming toward her as she pulled fruitlessly at the ties so he wouldn’t see, couldn’t see...
He took a breath. Held it. Then released it slowly.
Did it again.
And again.
Until it registered, he was modelling it for her. So she would breathe and allow the panic to recede, the tears to stop their welling.
“Doing that well, are you?” he asked when she’d calmed, just a little.
She laughed. Not long, not hard, but it was a better outburst than the sobs she had been close to just a moment before. “I was going to go home,” she confessed. “Or... I was trying to convince myself to go. I didn’t realise how...” she gestured at her shoulder, at her chest. Whatever bits of her he’d seen. The lump settled back into her throat, and she wanted to bring her wings forward to tuck about herself—to hide away as best she could.
The blankets would have done just as well, but that would be childish.
“How I appeared,” she finished quietly. He wasn’t touching her, but that was almost worse. He was just standing, patient and seeming so unaffected. As if he saw a woman panic every day.
As if it was common for a new mate to steal away from home without word of where she was going.
He gestured toward himself. To his mussed hair and rumpled clothing. “You look as well as I do,” he assured her. A lie if ever there was one. “I take it from your frequent protestations, you have not permitted me to take the role of your healer.” Nothing in his tone suggested he was angry at her denials, and she tamped down the urge to offer him a sheepish smile in order to smooth away the offence that was not there.
She shook her head instead, slowly. Gauging his reaction.
He smiled at her reassuringly, as if her answer was expected. “No examination, then.”
She wanted to wilt even at the prospect.
“All that remains is for you to decide if you should like a tray brought with your breakfast, or if you’d care to brave the lower level.” He added an ominous, teasing lilt to his tone, suggesting he thought the lumbering Brum to be a mischievous taunt rather than a serious threat.
She did not share his cavalier attitude, but she wanted to offer him something. Wanted to... try.
“I will eat at your table,” she managed, her heart not quite in it. That should be something special, should it not? A first meal shared. A bed made together, sharing shy smiles as they glanced at one another, both thinking fondly of what had been done in it the night before.
She glanced down at the mess of blankets and linens and was ashamed of herself.
She’d fallen into the role of invalid so easily. She should have tried harder, should have insisted she was better than she was, so she might have sweeter memories than counted breaths and measured pulses.
“Excellent. Dressed or undressed?”
She looked up at him in alarm, and he shook his head quickly.
“I meant...” he gestured toward the trunk where both of their clothing resided. “Should you like to change first? Or have me change?” He huffed out a breath and tugged at his hair before taking a careful step backward.
He did not want to crowd her. Did not want her alarmed.
Did not want her to panic again, she thought with a grim awareness that it was the truth of it.
“I’ve prepared a few things. I did not know what would be to your liking.”
No kitchen staff tending to his meals and cleaning up afterwards. Or perhaps he’d simply dismissed them so they might spend time alone.
She doubted that was the case, but she did not wish to presume he was without some funds.
She wanted to dress. Wanted herself fully covered and proper.
But there was another part, one that was dangerous and slipped away to fetes to watch couples fall in love and dance and see the beauty of their shimmering threads braid and cord and twine...
That one said to take his hand. To go down as they were. To let him see her scars and wonder at them, and maybe even allow herself to think he was marvelling at some beauty he found in them. In her.
“Right. I’ll go to the washroom, shall I? Dress there? Unless you would like to...”
She’d waited too long. Let him fill her silence with proprieties, and she found it terribly endearing.
“I would,” she agreed. “But maybe... maybe we might change after eating. I should hate the food to be neglected.”
In truth, she possessed little in the way of appetite. But she wanted him to know that his efforts were appreciated, and she was rewarded with a smile as he nodded. “Perfect.”
It was hardly that, but it was the best she had to offer.
He did not hover at the washroom door, but he also did not retreat all the way to the kitchen. Instead, she found him sitting on the top of the stair, his head turning when she made her way down the short hall. He stood almost immediately, his pensive expression replaced by his seemingly usual enthusiasm. “Brum is outside. If that worried you. I didn’t want you to have to make the way down, afraid you’d be startled by him.”
Because Brum was a name, not his species. She really must remember that.
“Does he like to be? Outside, that is.” He did not carry her down, but allowed her to make her way at her own pace. Slow, as usual when stairs were involved. Her hip ached, but only a little, and it might pass altogether as the day wore on.
“Oh, yes. Well... perhaps not yet. He breakfasts with me most days, when I am home to indulge him. But that does not mean he resents more time in his garden.”
She thought of the courtyard at home. All the ornamental vines and trees that had been planted with such purpose. Not by her, certainly, and not by her mother. Generations before, tended by knowing hands that knew how to pluck and water and prune as necessary.
She should have paid attention to such matters, but the suns tired her and the summer heats were oppressive when the high walls did not allow the sea breezes to offer respite.
“Why is it his?”
Athan laughed softly behind her. “He spends more time out there than I do. I try. There’s just always something, you know? Someone to visit, or hours in the infirmary. But I need to make the time. Plants play an important role in healing, as I’m sure you are aware.”
She hummed, mindful of the last step. “A pity he cannot be taught to tend it.”
She should offer, shouldn’t she? Another woman would, eager to take on the role as mate to a healer. To help him as he gave his help to others.
Perhaps that woman would even launder the linens in the infirmary. Wash his tools after a surgery.
The very prospect of stepping foot inside the building next door made her stomach turn.
She followed him down the hall, and then through the kitchen door he held open for her. She could not recall the last time she’d even been inside such a room, let alone to eat there.
But his table was there, pushed against the far wall. There was a large cushion on the floor, and beside it, one of the two chairs.
Food was on the table. Cups, a kettle blanketed in a quilted contraption that greatly resembled the covering they’d slept beneath the night before.
Homey, she decided.
In the sort of way her home had never been, yet felt... right.
There was a fire. Even a stove, although it was small and could not accommodate the suppers of her entire extended family.
But that was all right. They’d never be here. Would never have even considered it.
“Sit where you like,” Athan offered, going to the back door and peering through the window cut inside of it. She did not do as he suggested, instead following so she might catch a glimpse of the garden.
And the Brum.
For all his insistence he did not tend it well enough, all was lush and thriving. There were neat rows of beds, then twining paths that led to a small footbridge. An odd thing to have, given they could fly over most anything. She stood on tiptoe, trying to see if that meant there was a stream running through it, but she was rewarded with the Brum standing on his two back legs, his large front paws pressing against the windowpane as he hollered his displeasure at being removed from the house too soon.
Athan’s arm reached out and held her steady before she could bolt backward, her heart racing and her resentment growing. She did not like to be startled, did not handle it gracefully, and she realised his suggestion to sit at the table had been the correct course.
“You’re all right,” Athan soothed, which was a lie because she was not, and he knew perfectly well through the bond how she felt.
But she said nothing. Just slipped out of his grasp and went to the table, willing herself to calm before she said something sharp she would most certainly regret.
“Orma,” Athan sighed, but she shook her head.
“I’m all right,” she repeated, because if he could lie, then she could, too.
Athan made a snorting sound, and made some gesture toward Brum, and he disappeared behind the door in a huff. “Someday, you’ll have a proper introduction. And maybe you will even come to like him.”
Respect him, possibly, but that was the extent of what she could easily imagine.
She rubbed at her chest, willing her heart to calm, and Athan moved toward her. She fully expected him to insist on feeling her pulse, on counting her breaths, but instead he poured tea into a cup and pushed it toward her. Pulled it back again just before her fingers could wrap about the mug. “One of the leaves contains a mild stimulant. Will that prove too much for you?”
She was not of such a spiteful nature that she would bat his hand away and take a sip simply to prove that she could.
Instead, she sat, hating that he had to ask it. Hating that she had to run through the mental list of all the potions and elixirs she used regularly before she gave a soft nod.
“Excellent.” He pushed the cup back in her direction, and she tried not to feel small and like the girl she’d always been. Everyone had to be so careful with her. Had to make sure she wasn’t hurting herself, had to coddle and hover and...
She was grateful. She was.
Otherwise, she would implode.
Orma stared down at the cup, and this time was her emotions rather than the bond that was a tangled knot inside her chest, pressing and wriggling and making her want to flee.
She didn’t. Wouldn’t. There was the Brum outside. Although she was rather sure if she opened the door, he’d be more interested in being inside with his companion rather than following her. And maybe he wouldn’t eat her.
Maybe.
Athan was making those exaggerated breaths again, but this time she did not follow. Merely sipped the tea, and found the flavours pleasing, and fought not to glare are him.
He’d done nothing wrong. She was being ridiculous, that was all.
She even had to fight down the urge to tuck her legs up inside the too-large shirt he’d let her borrow.
Always hiding, her mother had said, even when she was small. A cupboard. Beneath a clothed table.
She couldn’t say it, then. That the threads overwhelmed her sometimes when there were too many people about for too long. Too many shimmers, too many colours—some clashing, some not.
Athan took the seat across from her, the one that boasted the large cushion at its side. Either to rest his feet upon after a long day, or because that’s where the Brum would sit if he was invited to the table.
She took another, longer sip of tea.
He had a life here. A profession. He knew how to cook, and how to keep a home, and he’d filled it already, not only with furnishings, but with a companion.
She had nothing to offer him. She was not a skilled conversationalist. There were no household chores assigned to her. She was proficient at nothing and had neither the energy nor the inclination to change that.
“Is the tea that dreadful?” Athan asked, leaning forward and watching her carefully.
Because he could feel it all, couldn’t he? The despair creeping over her. The one that reminded her that nothing had changed, that she was still as lost and alone as ever.
A burden.
First to her parents, then to the man across from her that deserved a far better mate than she could ever hope to be.
“No,” Orma croaked out, rubbing at the bare bit of thigh the borrowed shirt revealed. Over and over. Because she could breathe, and she would, and she did not need him hovering about her to do it. “It’s fine.”
He hummed, taking a sip from his own cup. “High praise.”
If he was insulted that she did not have a greater compliment to offer, he did not betray it. “Perhaps we might visit the market together, and you can show me which stall you prefer. Then I can offer something more to your liking.”
She laughed. She did not mean to, and it was a choked, wretched sort of sound. “I haven’t been.”
It was the first time in a long while he genuinely looked surprised.