“No, I’m delighted.”
He doesn’t rise to it. “Let me help.”
“I don’t need help opening a crate.”
“You already opened it.”
I glare.
He waits, which somehow makes it worse. He has this infuriating stillness when he thinks he’s right, like he can outlast any argument on principle. He probably can. He’s had close to a century to practise being unbearable.
I grip the sack and tug it free, avoiding his hand this time. “I can carry grain by myself, too, thanks.”
“You are still angry with me.”
“No shit.”
“For helping?”
“For existing in my space.”
His expression barely shifts, but something there becomes almost settled. “It is also my space.”
I hate when he’s reasonable. Even more, I hate that he’s right.
The warehouse was mine first, in the loosest sense possible. A bolthole I found and made liveable. Hidden enough to work, central enough to be useful, ugly enough no one important looked twice at it. After Kael and Sonny—and the new shiny bond—it became the place that I returned to because there weren’t many options and because I knew its weak points and secret entrances better than anyone else.
Then Varek stayed.
Despite me telling him not to.
Repeatedly.
At first because his presence was a risk. Guards had seen him. Too many people knew his face now. If he led trouble here, everyone under this roof would pay for it.
Then because the bond made distance feel like being flayed from the inside, and I didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant.
Now? Now he’s simply… here. Sleeping in the room across from mine. Repairing broken hinges before I can get to them. Bringing back kills from the wilds. Standing too close. Watching me with that endless, unreadable devotion I never asked for and don’t know what to do with.
I heft the grain sack to my shoulder with a grunt. The joint protests immediately.
Varek stands in one fluid motion. “I will carry it.”
“I said no.”
He steps in front of me before I can move away, not touching, just there, a wall of male and heat and stubbornness. The closer he gets, the worse it is… this awareness that won’t piss off when he’s near. It’s like standing too close to a live wire. My skin prickles. My pulse jumps.
My body moves forward—traitorous, instinctive—and I hate it.
I lean in anyway. Just to prove I can. Just to prove this thing between us doesn’t get to decide what I do.
“Your shoulder is injured.”
“I’m annoyed. Different condition.”
“You are both.”
I tip my head back to glare at him properly. “Do all Nyxerians think bossing people around counts as charm?”
