I shifted from foot to foot, embarrassed on Fiona’s behalf.
“Let’s go see her,” I said firmly to Tilly. We began walking into the large mountain’s main entrance. Oxriel and Zoren followed, as their sleeping cave was attached to ours. Warrek and Gahn Thaleo remained outside together, likely to have some private conversation amongst themselves. I knew that Warrek was basically Gahn Thaleo’s right-hand man.
But not his friend, apparently.
I was already thinking ahead to finding Fiona, so I almost missed the low murmur of, “Goodnight, Nazreen,” from behind me. “To you and your friends.”
Fiona wasa weepy mess when we found her.
“I just sucked Dalk’s dick,” she blurted when Tilly and I entered the cave. “And then I mucked it all up asking him all these deep questions about what he’d do if someone else ended up being my mate. And then he said he’d murder them. And then I kind of freaked out. And then Valeria came, and…” A sob choked off her words as Tilly and I hurried towards her.
We sat down on either side of her on the bed, like bookends around a tearstained little book we both loved.
“And…And now…he’s gone!” Fiona rambled between stuttering breaths.
“Not forever,” Tilly assured her, patting her rhythmically on her upper back.
“How do you know?” Fiona shot back, swiping tears from her face.
“Because no one who’s seen how Dalk looks at you would believe him capable of staying away,” I said confidently.
Fiona sniffed, seeming at least somewhat comforted by this.
“Like how Gahn Thaleo looks at you,” Tilly said.
It took me a second to realize that the subject of conversation had shifted to me.
“We’re talking about Fiona right now!” I said, feeling strangely attacked. Which was stupid, because Tilly was one of the cheeriest people I knew. She got up early and whistled and hummed and liked to make soft crafts and clothes. Though she could be very blunt. Like right now.
But maybe she had a plan with this. Because suddenly Fiona wasn’t looking so mopey and instead was blinking away her tears, gazing at me with interest.
Oh, God, Tilly.
She knew I wouldn’t want to change the subject if it was distracting our friend from her own woes. Tilly raised her eyebrows encouragingly at me. I pursed my lips. She was too damn cute and clever for her own good. And mine, apparently.
“Was he doing his usual laser-eyes, Nasrin-stalker thing?” Fiona asked. “He hasn’t told you you’re his mate yet, has he?”
“Jesus, no!” I exclaimed, my heart leaping into my throat at the thought.
“Yeah, fair. If he’d already had a mate vision of you,” Fiona said, “there’s no way he’d let you go live in Gahn Errok’s mountain part-time. That was the whole basis for the taklok thing, after all. Gahn Errok challenged Gahn Thaleo to a death match just for inviting Steph over for dinner! If Gahn Thaleo hadhad a vision of you, he’d be doing everything in his power to keep you here.”
“And that is precisely the problem,” I said. “The fact that, just because some magic alien dragon might choose me for him, or any other man, that suddenly I’m bound to them. Just like that.” I snapped my fingers.
Tilly nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, at this point, we have the shuttle and the strength of numbers. If you ended up with a Deep Sky mate and truly didn’t want him, or you didn’t want to stay here, I believe that Valeria and many others would stand behind you. We’ve never allowed any of the other women to just be foisted off onto someone they weren’t sure about.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “But it isn’t just that!”
“What else is it?” Fiona asked.
I mulled over how to put it into words. Something I hadn’t really thought about precisely, but that had always been lurking at the back of my mind. An innate rejection of the idea of a fated mate bond.
“I just think…I think love is something you should choose,” I said. “Every single day.” My throat grew unexpectedly tight as images of my parents flashed before me. Of my mom slipping Iranian sweets into Baba’s lunch every morning – cookies or little squares of cake flavoured with pistachios and saffron and rose petals. Of Baba leaving scraps of paper around the house scrawled with lines from Persian love poems for Maman to find, secret whispers of what he felt for her.
No one told them to feel that way. No magic bond snapped suddenly into place. Real love was built between two people slowly, resolutely, shored up against strife with little actions, little choices, every day. At least, that was how it had been for my parents. And they were basically the most in-love people I’d ever met. So much so that it became impossible for me to ever havea long-term relationship of my own that lived up to it. I’d never met a man who inspired me to commit the way they did.
I’d never met a man who left me lines from love poems as little gifts, either. So maybe that was part of the problem.
