Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Mmhmm.
Like Luna, too.
The comparison isn’t lost on me.
“I check on her regularly, but she isn’t always awake when I do it. My hands are a bit tied there, I’m afraid. I come and go at odd times.”
She nods, and loses just a bit of the heat in her voice. “Yeah, okay.”
“It isn’t, though, is it?” I ask.
She just stares at me, waiting and unsure.
“It isn’t okay,” I clarify.
Nothing has been okay since the moment I left her behind in our sleeping bunk. It took every ounce of self-control for me to do it then, and the choice continues to test my patience and morals over and over again. Especially when I know she’s sleeping and wouldn’t even realize I had been in to see her while she dreams.
But I respect Luna’s ultimate wishes … I’ll keep giving her the space she wants until she no longer does, even if it kills me.
And it does kill me.
All the time. Every day.
“We’re designed this way being mates, you and I,” I explain the longer she stays silent and observes me from the far corner of the room. I don’t need her to tell me that she’d like to close the distance just as much as me. I’m very aware that her hands probably ache as much as mine do to reach between the space that separates us and make it all go away. We’re supposed to want that, both of us. “Designed to yearn for one another until we find the other, and then our hearts are happiest when they’re home. It’s how it’s supposed to be for us, Zawla. I’m sorry that you’re feeling this way.”
“You don’t know how I—”
“I know it because I feel it, too,” I interject before her pride can get in the way.
Some things may not be absolute. Others, like our fates, simply cannot be changed. Until she and I can find a happy medium, a middle ground, then this is how it will be for the both of us.
I gave her what she wanted.
Nobody said it would be easy.
“Oh, good,” she mutters, waving a hand high, “I’ll just spend my time wallowing over someone who hurt me, I guess. Wanting someone who will probably just turn right around and do the same thing to me again.”
I flinch. “I would not—”
“You don’t get to say that, Halun, because I don’t believe it’s true.”
She doesn’t yell, but the slight pitch to her tone makes my gaze cut to the door where I know guards wait outside along with other Hallans who man different aspects of the large ship. It really does take an entire crew to make the thing fly, however, I don’t think that same crew needs to overhear where this conversation might go.
“I’m not sure this is the right time or place,” I murmur.
“I swear I didn’t come here to pick a fight.”
No, I don’t think that’s the case, either, but even fighting together right now is better than what we have been doing.
“It’s okay if you did, but I’d just rather go somewhere else to have it, Zawla.”
She slaps the sides of her thighs. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Nobody really said what you were doing in here, so I didn’t think … Well, obviously it doesn’t matter what I thought. You’re busy.”
“Only for a while. I’ll be done here before you’re getting ready for bed later, and my time then is open to anything.”
I hold back from saying I could find her.
Barely.
Luna coming to find me was a big step forward, but I still need her to make that first move. She is the one making the calls now. I truly meant that when I said it, but the very moment she allows me even closeness, I plan on taking it.
“I’ll, um, be in the bathing hall around then,” she says like it’s not that important. As if that one detail doesn’t make my heart soar.
“Oh?”
“We could talk.”
“Could we?”
In a blink, that fire comes back into her eyes.
I’ve missed it.
“Well, I’ll talk. You’ll probably listen.”
So be it.
“I’ll do that, too,” I tell her. “Anything for you.”
*
By the time I do find my mate bathing in the farthest suite in the hall, talking is the very last thing I think she wants to do. It’s the first time I’ve gazed upon the beauty of her nakedness in longer than I care to admit. The fact that she keeps her head down, pretending as if she didn’t hear me walk the long corridor, allows me to appreciate the sight of her for a bit before her lifting head forces my gaze away from the way the water laps at her skin.
I hate that water right now. So viciously that if it were not such a precious resource on this ship, I’d consider having every drop of it drained so that it couldn’t touch her body again while I was not allowed to. Although, that reaction might be a bit much.