One moment things were normal, but a weight pressed against my shoulder in tiny increments. I turned and saw Andrek’s head resting on my shoulder. He’d fallen asleep in a gradual surrender.
His data pad stayed in his hands, but his breathing slowed and deepened.
His wing shifted as he relaxed, extending slowly until it curved over both of us in a broad, warm canopy. I don’t think he knew he’d done it. I don’t think he was awake enough to know anything.
I went still.
Above us, his wing. Around us, the amber light and the soft sounds of the monitoring equipment and the deep silence of the estate at whatever ungodly hour this was.
I should have shifted and repositioned him or woken him so he could sleep in an actual bed. I ran through all these reasonable options and rejected them. In his sleep, he looked younger, more relaxed. There was a line between his brows that showed while he was awake, but in rest, it disappeared. His mouth was open, and I realized he was not as old as he sometimes seemed.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I was falling in love with him.
Nothad fallen, because I wasn’t sure I was there yet, but I suspected it had been happening for quite some time.
I was falling in love with a man who’d gone completely silent when I’d asked about his mate.He’s grieving, I thought.You don’t know what for, or how long or how deep the grief runs. He hasn’t told you, and you’re not going to make yourself into a complication in someone else’s grief, Dani. Do not be the person who sees someone carrying a weight and think you can fix him.
Pip stirred in my lap. Her temperature was down. Her breathing was easy.
I closed my eyes and let myself have the time we needed together under the warmth of his wing and the head on my shoulder. Then, I succumbed to sleep.
Pip recovered on the morning of the third day.
She sat up on her own, demanded food in unambiguous terms, and bit me on the thumb when I was too slow with the water. Andrek identified that as an indicator of full recovery.
Over the next two days, I was careful around Andrek. I wanted to give him space and not push him. I didn’t want him to read more into the overlook, and our cuddle session when Pip was sick.
He noticed.Of course he noticed.He was a man who had spent years reading situation rooms and making assessments with incomplete data.
Three days after Pip’s recovery, I stood at the sink washing up after dinner when he stood in the doorway. I felt his presence before I saw him.
“Dani.”
“Almost done,” I said, to the sink.
I could feel him parsing the silence.
“Are you,” he stopped and started again with different words. “Did something happen with the bond during her fever?” He chose his words with caution. “If the bond caused you distress, the literature suggests it can sometimes alter how the imprinted person feels about…”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Pip’s fine. Everything is fine.”
Another silence filled the air. “I see,” he said after a moment.
But he didn’t see. I knew he didn’t see, because he felt my withdrawal was about the imprint, or that I was reassessing whether this was what I wanted.
He was protecting himself; I realized. Granted, it was with a wrong answer because he had no way of knowing how I felt.
I understood because I was doing the same thing, except I was protecting myself from throwing myself at him.
“Goodnight,” I said. I dried my hands and went to my room and sat on the edge of my bed in the quiet.
And I stayed where I was.
Through the wall, or in my chest, the bond pulsed. Pip was peaceful and asleep. She was healthy and unaware of the bond she’d made possible between two people.
I put my hand over the place in my chest where the bond sat.
You’re fine, I told myself.
