Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The knife slipped, and Njkall watched a bead of dark blood well up along his thumb before he registered the sting.
He set the blade down on the worktable and stared at the half-carved bone handle he’d been shaping.
He’d carved a thousand of these—simple grips for hunting tools, the work so familiar he could do it in his sleep.
He didn’t cut himself. Not in twenty years.
But he’d been distracted. Polly had returned from the healer’s cave an hour ago. And something was wrong.
He pressed his thumb against his mouth to stop the bleeding and turned to look at her.
She sat across the room by the fire, a half-finished string of beads forgotten in her lap, her eyes fixed on the flames.
She’d been like that since she came in—quiet, distant, tucked into herself in a way he hadn’t seen for months.
This wasn’t the easy silence they’d grown comfortable with, the kind that needed no filling.
This was the old silence. The one that had walls in it.
His stomach tightened.
Last night she’d reached for him. She’d wanted him, openly and without fear, and he’d allowed himself more than he’d ever dared hope. This morning she’d been happy. Then she’d gone to see Tess. And now she could barely look at him.
He forced himself not to decide what that meant. That, at least, was a lesson he’d learned. Instead, he crossed the room and lowered himself onto the furs beside her, leaving enough space between them that she could close it if she wanted. Or not.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
Her hands tightened on the beads. “I’m tired.”
“You and Tess have been working hard, and making a lot of progress.” He kept his voice low and even. “I’m proud of you.”
“You’re always proud of me.” There was an edge to the words he didn’t understand. “Whether I do anything or not.”
He let that pass, knowing it wasn’t the real issue.
“Polly, if last night was too much—”
“It wasn’t.”
The answer came quickly enough to stop him, and he nodded, breathing a silent sigh of relief.
“All right.”
She glanced at him, almost suspiciously, as though she’d expected him to continue.
He didn’t. He had spent a year trying to read every tremor in her voice and every flicker in her eyes before she had to name what she needed. Sometimes that had helped her. Sometimes, he now knew, it had prevented her from discovering the answer for herself.
So he waited, the silence stretching out between them until she finally sighed and dropped the beads into her lap.
“You’re very annoying when you’re trying to be good.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ve been told I’m annoying when I’m not trying.”
“That’s also true.”
Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. Not much. But enough.
“I don’t know what you need from me right now,” he said quietly.
The words felt strange in his mouth. He was accustomed to knowing what people needed.
It was part of leadership. Part of surviving.
You read the weather before the storm arrived, spotted the weak stone before someone put weight on it, noticed the clan member who was hungry before pride made them ask.
But he’d spent the last year trying to learn what she needed, and now everything was different.
“So I’m asking,” he continued. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Her throat moved.
“Maybe.”
“I can wait.”
“Of course you can.” There was an unexpected sharpness in the words.
He turned towards her and saw her eyes had gone bright.
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means you can always wait. You can always step back. You can always give me space.” She looked down at the beads again. “You’re very good at making sure I know exactly how little you expect from me.”
“I thought that was important.”
“It was.”
“Was?”
She drew in a breath.
“It still is. I don’t want you making my decisions for me. I meant everything I said before.” She looked up. “But that’s not the same thing as pretending you don’t have any wants of your own.”
He stared at her, not understanding what she meant.
“I don’t pretend that.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. She gave a small, unhappy laugh.
“Exactly.”
“Polly—”
“Last night meant something to me.” Her voice wavered, but she kept going. “This morning meant something to me. And then I spent half the day thinking about what comes next, and I came home wondering, and you’ve been sitting over there being careful.”
“I didn’t know whether you wanted me close.”
“Did you want to be close?”
“Yes.”
“Then why weren’t you?”
He winced.
“Because I knew you were pulling away.”
“So you pulled farther.”
“I was giving you room.”
“I know.” She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. “And I’m not angry about that. Not exactly. I just—”
She broke off, and he waited patiently.
“Sometimes it feels like you’re always preparing for me to leave,” she said finally, her voice small and uncertain.
Every muscle in his body went still.
“You make sure I know the other sleeping cave is still mine. You make sure I know I can say no. You make sure I know I can go with you or stay behind when you leave.” She looked down at her hands, avoiding his eyes. “You make sure I know I don’t owe you anything.”
“Because you don’t.”
“I know that.”
She looked up at him then, tears beginning to gather in her eyes.
“But you never say, ‘I want you here.’ You never say, ‘I don’t want you to sleep in the other cave.’ You never say, ‘I hate the idea of you leaving me.’” Her mouth trembled.
“You give me every possible exit, Njkall, and sometimes I don’t know whether that’s because you love me enough to let me go or because losing me wouldn’t hurt you as much as losing you would hurt me. ”
Her voice broke on the last words, and he closed the distance between them before he thought better of it, then caught himself and stopped just short of touching her.
“Polly.”
She looked away again.
“No.” His voice had roughened. “Look at me.”
After a long, agonizing moment, she finally looked back at him.
“Losing you would destroy me.”
She went completely still.
He hadn’t meant to say it that way, but perhaps there was no better way.
He sat back on his heels, every cautious instinct he’d learned over the past year telling him to soften the words, qualify them, make certain she understood that his feelings were not her responsibility. For once, he did none of those things.
“Do you want to know what I truly want?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
His heart was pounding hard enough that he could feel it beneath his ribs.
“I want you here. With me.”
Tears started to trickle down her cheeks, but he forced himself to keep going. Forced himself not back away.
“I want you in my quarters. I want you in my bed. I want to wake with your hair in my face and find your beads under my feet and listen to you argue with me about things you know perfectly well you’re wrong about.”
Despite the tears, her mouth twitched.
“I’m rarely wrong.”
“You’re wrong constantly.” He kept going before his courage failed him. “I want to walk into this cave and know you’ll be here. I want to walk into any room and look for you first. I want every ordinary day you’ll give me, little one.”
Her breath hitched.
“And I want more than that.”
The fire cracked softly between one breath and the next.
“I want you as my mate.”
The words hung in the air between them. She didn’t look as shocked as he’d expected, but her hands were shaking.
“I want it more than I have wanted anything in my life. I want to bind myself to you openly and permanently. I want the whole clan to know you are mine and I am yours. I want to sleep beside you until the mountains wear to dust.”
Her face paled at that, and he nearly stopped. He nearly offered her the door again. Instead he made himself stay where he was and keep going.
“But wanting it does not make it mine to take,” he said. “And wanting you to stay does not give me the right to keep you.”
“If you know that, why haven’t you ever said any of this?” she whispered.
And there was the question he’d spent a year avoiding. The thing he’d buried so deep he’d nearly convinced himself it wasn’t there. The truth he’d been dancing around for months, hiding behind patience and restraint and endless careful kindness. This time he was the one to look away.
“Because I’m afraid.”
The word fell between them, stark and strange in his mouth. He did not speak of fear. He was the one others came to when they were afraid—the steady one, the calm one, the mountain that didn’t move. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d admitted to being frightened of anything.
“Afraid of what?” she asked softly.
“Of asking you to stay.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid that if I tell you how much I want you, you’ll hear obligation instead of desire.
That if I tell you I want you as my mate, you’ll look at everything I’ve done for you this past year and think you owe me something in return.
Because I could not bear to have my wanting become another weight you had to carry. ”
Her eyes filled again.
“So I thought the safest thing was to make sure you always knew you could leave. I told myself that was enough.” He looked back at her. “And perhaps sometimes I hid behind it.”
“Because if you never asked me to stay, I could never tell you no,” she said quietly.
He winced, but he forced himself to meet her eyes.
“Yes.”
She stared at him as though she’d never seen him clearly before.
“You’re afraid I’ll reject you.”
“Yes. But I also am afraid you will feel you cannot.”
That distinction mattered, and she seemed to understand that because her face softened.
“So I hide it,” he finished. “I build you doors. I offer you exits. I take back every true thing the moment I’ve said it, because I’d rather you never know the depth of what I feel than have that feeling become a cage.
Even if hiding it means…” His throat worked.
“Even if it means I never get to have you at all.”
“You’re afraid,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“All this time.” She closed the careful distance he’d kept between them.
“All this time I thought you were the one thing that couldn’t be shaken.
That you didn’t need anything. That you just gave, and gave, and gave, and never wanted anything back.
” Her hand came up to rest against his chest, small and warm over the place where his heart was slamming. “And you were afraid the whole time.”
“Yes.” He covered her hand with his own. “And I’m afraid now, because I’ve finally said it.”
She looked up at him, tears on her cheeks, and for the first time since she’d come home that day the walls in her eyes were gone.
“You should have told me,” she whispered. “You great, stubborn fool. You should have told me you were scared too.”
“I didn’t know how. And perhaps I didn’t want to admit it.”
She sighed and gently patted his chest.
“It’s okay to want things from me,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.” Her fingers curled slightly in his fur. “Wanting isn’t the same as taking. You can tell me you want me to stay, and I can still leave.”
His throat tightened, but he nodded.
“You can tell me you want me in your bed, and I can still sleep somewhere else.”
“Yes.”
“You can tell me you want me as your mate...” Her voice faltered, and she swallowed hard. “And I can still say no.”
“Yes.”
The word hurt, but he said it anyway. She nodded slowly.
“Then that’s what I need from you. Not less wanting, but trusting me enough to let me decide what to do with it.”
“I can do that.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath. “But I also need to tell you something, and I need you to not decide what it means before I finish saying it.”
His heart stopped.
“All right,” he managed.
“Permanence frightens me.”
The words hung between them like smoke, curling in the warm air of the cave.
“Not you. Never you. But forever still sounds too much like no way out. I know a mate claim isn’t ownership, but some part of me hears permanent and thinks trapped.
” She made a helpless gesture with her free hand.
“It’s like standing at the edge of a cliff.
Even when you know the ground is solid. Even when you know you won’t fall. ”
“You still feel the drop,” he said quietly.
“Yes.” She exhaled, a shaky rush of breath. “Exactly that.”
The fire crackled. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint echo of voices—other clan members going about their evening, living their lives in easy rhythm with one another.
“What do you want now?” he asked eventually. “Not tomorrow. Not forever. Just right now.”
For a long moment she said nothing, then she leaned into him, just a little.
“I want to stay here.”
A knot inside him loosened.
“With me?”
“Yes.”
“In my bed?”
A tiny smile appeared.
“Definitely.”
He allowed himself one slow breath.
“As my mate?”
Her smile disappeared, but she didn’t retreat.
“I don’t know yet.”
It hurt, but less than he would have expected. Perhaps because he’d already known her answer. Perhaps because she had given him the truth rather than the answer he wanted. He nodded.
“Then you don’t know yet.”
She studied him.
“And that’s all?”
“No.” He reached down and cupped her cheek. “I also want you to know that I hope someday the answer will be yes.”
A startled laugh escaped her.
“You’re learning.”
“Slowly, but I’m learning.”
His thumb moved across her cheekbone.
“If you chose tomorrow to leave Hothrest, I would not stop you. I would give you everything you needed for the journey. I would make certain you were safe.” His jaw tightened. “It would destroy me. But I would let you go. Because you being free matters more to me than you being mine.”
Her expression tightened, but he continued before she could say anything.
“I don’t want you to go. I want you here, little one. I want you here tomorrow and the day after that. I want more days than either of us can count. I want the permanence that frightens you.”
He bent his head until his forehead rested against hers.
“But you don’t owe it to me.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to try to believe that you know that.”
That made her laugh softly.
“Good.”
He closed his eyes with a sigh of relief, and after a moment her arms slipped around his waist. He gathered her against him, not because she needed comfort, but because he wanted to hold her. And because she wanted to be held.
He didn’t know whether she would ever choose the bond he wanted so desperately. But she had chosen him today. And for now, that was enough.