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They can stand to be apart for a few hours. Right?
“Just tired.” Nur turns back to Rhys. “We traveled day and night to catch up. The sand wears on you.”
“Tell me about it.” He squeezes Nur’s arm. “I was worried about leaving you alone with him.”
“You don’t need to worry. He took good care of me.”
“If you say so.”
Rhys’s skepticism amuses him. It’s hard to imagine anyone losing sleep over his welfare—at Arsene’s hands, no less. But he says nothing in Arsene’s defence. His heat is private, a timestolen away. He’s already put it in a secret box, along with everything Arsene said to him.
You’re my mate.
I’ll give you everything.
They’re fragile words. They could break apart on the sharp truths of his world.
The caravan’snumbers have grown. There are tattered and thin-faced scavengers among them, companions of the girl who led them here. Rhys tells him they’re hoping to go west too. There are plenty of familiar faces to greet, grown leaner and dustier in the brief time since he last saw them. The pups are eager to pester him for stories. Some are even anxious to tell himtheirstories, all about trudging through sand for days and days. Nur bears it with patience, even fondness. He’d never have imagined himself capable of it. A dozen demon generals have nothing on one small human determined to explain, in excruciating detail, how she made a potion out of the five different types of sand she found that day.
And, of course, there’s a pile of work.
“Thank goodness you’re back,” says Josi when he arrives at the makeshift kitchen. “Wait here.”
She disappears under the canopy that’s been set up as a washing tent and comes back with an armful of clothes, which she dumps into Nur’s arms. He meant to pick up some food as an excuse to find Arsene, but guilt provokes him into taking the load.
“The kids are running around like animals in this place, getting into terrible scrapes. You ought to remind them you’re not just here to darn your fingers to the bone.”
Nur eyes the pile of clothing. “Are you sure they haven’t been taking knives to these?”
“We’re just lucky no one’s been badly hurt.” Josi sighs. “Irvin’s keeping busy. I’m sure he’ll be glad you made it—he was worried.”
“He was?” Nur frowns.
“Of course.” She gives him a faint smile. “Just bring those back when you’re done. I try, but I’m not as good at it as you.”
Does that mean I’m part of the company?
The humans opened their arms to him, and he’s indebted to them. Yet Arsene isn’t wholly wrong. He holds himself apart—there’s a gulf their kindness can’t cross, the difference between seeing the brutality of the world andknowingit. Arsene has a darkness in his heart, and Nur hates that he does yet it makes him more precious than Nur would ever dare say aloud.
More than any closeness brought on by the bond, that’s what lashes them to the same orbit.
He catches glimpses of Arsene as he works, but Arsene never comes to him. He always seems busy. Sometime in the late afternoon, Nur loses track of him.It’s fine,he tells himself.
“You’re looking for him again.” Rhys nudges him. His long legs stretch toward the low cooking fire. Nur hasdefinitelynot set himself up here in case Arsene comes by.
His mate is busy with his own duties. Nur isn’t needy.
Liar.
“Nur.”
He shakes himself. “I’m not.”
Rhys’s eyebrows disappear under his bangs. “Uh huh.”
Nur tries to focus on his stitches. The day is waning. He’ll see Arsene again at night, surely. When the tent flap opens and he crawls inside, blanketing Nur with his big, warm body, sighing into his neck, his already stiffening with need down below?—
“…it work?” Rhys is saying.
