Time
I was sitting in the window seat in Tanyn’s room.
I could feel some cold seeping through the window, so I had a throw wrapped around me.
And I had my Palm in my hand.
But now I didn’t know if I needed to comm my besties.
Or my mom.
I was confused. I was muddled.
And I was scared.
Tanyn was again locked in the study, because a king’s duties never ceased.
And I was locked in my head.
Because, added to all that was thrashing around up there was the fact that now I was annoyed, and even worried, that Tanyn wasn’t making any moves.
No stolen kisses. Not even lip touches. Hardly any touches at all, come to think of it.
We’d returned, warming up with hot cocoa spiked with peppermint schnapps. We’d chatted, me in my armchair in the lounge by the fire, him in his.
Then he’d been called away.
I text commed him to tell him I was going to freshen up for dinner.
He’d text commed back a simple, OK.
But now, there was too much, and I didn’t know where to lay it so whoever I gave it to could help me sort it out.
Mom would be compassionate, but she would do so trying to guide me to Tanyn, because that was what Dad wanted.
My gals would be the same, but they wouldn’t have any answers, like I didn’t have any.
I had one more night and one more day here. The soni-jet was coming to pick both Tanyn and I up tomorrow evening at six.
We were dropping him at Berg Castle before I would head on to Nocturn.
Sure, there was still plenty of time to have sex.
But…what was he waiting for?
Me to make the first move?
Well, that was not going to happen.
Pride dictated that, for certain.
A knock came at the door, probably a bot sent up by Tanyn with a martini or something, just so he could muddle my head even further by being thoughtful, so I called, “Come.”
The door opened and Zyra poked her head in.
“There you are,” she said on a wide grin.
“Hey,” I replied, keeping the throw in place as I aimed my knees and my attention to her. “Have I languished up here too long?”
She entered the room and closed the door behind her, shaking her head. “No. Though, I did wonder if you wanted me to program dinner.”
“Is Tanyn done in the study?”
“He’s shooting the breeze in the kitchen with Manny.”
Well, shit.
Whoops.
I started to get up but Zyra ordered, “Don’t move.”
I stilled.
She came to sit in the window seat at my feet.
“Are you all right?” she asked gently.
This was Tanyn’s other mother, assuredly. Or at least a favorite auntie. I could not lay all that was messing with my head on her.
Therefore, I lied, “I’m fine.”
“Catla, dear, Tanyn tells Manny everything.”
He did?
“I might be breaking confidences, but looking into your eyes, I believe that’s necessary,” she continued.
So I wasn’t hiding my feelings.
Terrific.
“Tan told Manny what he did, arranging this marriage with your father,” she carried on.
I pressed my lips tightly together so I wouldn’t say anything.
“I really have no idea why he didn’t simply court you, except to say, from when he was a wee lad, he was decisive.
He knew what he liked and didn’t. What he wanted and what he could do without.
There was never any vacillation from that boy.
” She smiled a wistful smile. “You should have heard him when you asked what he wanted for his birthday, Summer Solstice or Dead Winter. He knew exactly what it was, piped right up and never changed his mind.”
Although I found this intriguing, for obvious reasons, I didn’t find it surprising.
She patted my knee and said, “I can imagine this is a great deal for you to wrap your head around.”
I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “To give up everything I know and love to be queen of a foreign land that is not my own, yes. You could say that.”
She smiled at me sympathetically and said, “I can’t help you with that.
I also can’t advise on it, because Manny courted me.
We knew when we wed that we wanted the same things, that we fit into each other’s lives perfectly.
And we had time to figure that out. What I can say is, both me and Manny, and okay,”—another smile—“mostly it was me who fretted about Tanyn going to the pens. I know he intends to go to his mother’s grave, and we’ll go with him.
That isn’t the same. She just rests there.
She didn’t die there. You two glided right by where her body was found, and he knows where that was because he ordered Manny to take him there. ”
Now I was pressing my lips together for a different reason.
“I don’t know how you managed to get him through that, to break that seal and have him come home more himself than I’ve seen him since we lost her. But whatever you did, I thank you for doing it.”
The fact I accomplished this (however I accomplished it) made me even more confused, because I felt such pride about it. I wasn’t sure I was prouder of anything I’d done in my entire life.
“I like him,” I divulged.
“Well, that’s good,” she said slowly.
“I don’t want to like him.”
“I can imagine giving up everything you know for a male you don’t really know would be daunting.”
“Daunting doesn’t quite cover it,” I mumbled.
“He will give you whatever you want,” she announced with such surety, I felt my eyes round. “Except let you go.”
My eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry, luv,” she said gently. “But I’ve known that boy since he was unsteady on his feet and still in nappies. I know he’s gone for you, and because he is, he will never let you go.”
My chest began to feel tight.
“But he will give you time,” she went on.
I blinked as her words made a thought occur to me.
She kept speaking.
“He’ll give you whatever you need, so you can be happy, as long as being that happy is with him.”
“I’m not sure those two things fit,” I told her. “He can’t leave where he’s from and what he has to do there, and I really can’t see leaving what I have where I am.”
“If you give it time, do you see a path to finding a way to make a fit?”
“Not really.”
“Then it’s good Tan is not only decisive, but clever, so he can find that way for you both.” She patted my knee again. “Just…give him time to do that.”
I didn’t reply, because what was now filling my head was…
Was he giving me time to get used to him before he made any physical overtures?
That was absolutely not part of a normal compatibility trial. Sex was on the menu. No one was fooling anyone either, when they went on about the history of that tradition. Sex was the reason the menu was created.
And now that I admitted to myself I wanted to have sex with Tanyn Firefierce, I didn’t want to have it with him, because I suspected it’d be good, if not great, if not absolutely mind-blowing, and then where would that put me?
“Would you like me to make some excuses so you can stay up here for a bit?” Zyra offered. “Or are you ready for dinner?”
“I’m ready for a martini.”
She smiled, broadly again, and got out of the window seat before offering her hand to me.
“Then let’s go get you a drink.”
I tossed the throw aside, put my feet on the floor and my hand in hers, and together, after she tucked my hand affectionately to the side of her chest, we walked to the kitchen.
“Oh, Beelzebub, that time we sliced open the belly of that cod, the look on you two females’ faces,” Manny recounted through laughter, cherry tears of mirth in his eyes.
He turned to me, who was grimacing at the mere thought of gutting a fish, more so because Manny was sharing how he’d taught Tanyn how to do it when he was only seven years old.
“Both Dary and Zyr went off fish for months after that,” he said to me.
“I wasn’t even there, and I’m never eating fish again,” I replied.
Manny and Zyra burst out laughing.
Tanyn grinned a smug grin at me.
I felt his grin in my nether regions and sucked back more wine.
I was tipsy, and indeed, that tipsy was bordering on drunk.
We were at the kitchen table. The massive hearth in there was burning merrily, heating the space so it was actually cozy warm.
They’d had dinner with us there (for your information, thick pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted sprouts and flaky biscuits, followed by steamed treacle sponge drowned in custard).
I was partially unable to move due to the amount of food in my stomach.
A further part was the level of my inebriation.
Another part was how lovely it was to sit in this kitchen with these people.
The last part was the frequency of Tanyn’s smiles and even grins.
It was easy to see he was now fully home. He’d shaken off the trauma of his mother’s loss, if just for now, and was blithely listening to reminiscing, even about her, from these people who were not blood but were family.
He was a different male, like this.
And if I was honest with myself, I’d wanted him since I’d met him, but that solely had to do with his looks and magnetism.
Now I wanted him more than ever before.
On that thought, I topped up not only my wine, but everyone else’s.
“What I remember is you hooking that massive tuna that led you on such a merry chase, you both fell out of the boat,” Zyra said. Then to me, “Once they got back in the boat, rowed to shore and trudged up to the house, their clothes were frozen solid. It took hours to defrost them.”
“Did the tuna get away?” I asked.
“Lost the bugger,” Manny groused. “And he took my pole with him.”
I laughed.
And Tanyn rested his foot on the top of mine.
The unusual intimacy of that startled me, and my gaze shot to him.
The black of his pupils was dilating and contracting, like he was visibly struggling with deep emotion.
Or arousal.
I stopped laughing and drank more wine.
“Have you ever fished, Catla?” Mangold asked me.
“Absolutely not,” I answered.
He chuckled. “I guessed not.”
“I have been on a yacht, more than one, actually,” I shared.
Mangold smiled at me. “I could guess that too.”
“No fishing was involved for anyone,” I said.
Mangold’s smile didn’t move.
“Dary didn’t fish either, dear,” Zyra told me. “I think she would have been a vegetarian if—”
Mangold clearing his throat interrupted her.
She didn’t start speaking again.
“If what?” I asked.
Mangold and Zyra were looking anywhere but at me.