He exhales through his nostrils. “I need you to have a Fuegorra again. Our child needs it as well.”
There are unspoken messages in that, other things that hide between the lines of the words, but I don’t push.
There are questions about our future that I fear asking. I wonder where this leaves us with our matehood.
“You have done well taking care of me,” I say.
“You deserve to be cared for. It is the absolute least I can do,” he grumbles back.
I watch him, and recall with a heated mind, our best moments together. When he held me. When he participated in the mating journey and all the theatrics for me. The room in the Enclave. The dancing on the islands.
And remembering the islands brings me back to the Hollow. Where I saw his heart. Suddenly, a hundred questions surge.
“What happened to you after I left?” I ask softly. No need to clarify when exactly.
“We were still attacked. I almost bled out, and then some of your…brujafriends saved me.”
“How?” I wonder.
He sighs. “They gave me back my heart.”
The room spins. “So that means that you…right now…you have your heart?” I say slowly. I remember how beautiful it had been to see. How beautiful our mating song had been—I remember it faintly in the back of my mind.
He nods.
“So you feel me…as your mate?” I continue.
He freezes, looking at me with an expression that doesn’t wish to give away too much. Despite the chill in the air, despite how poorly I’m feeling, warmth washes through my veins. I prop myself up.
Vann starts to blink. It’s an odd gesture, one I’m not sure what it means. His mouth falls open, and then he practically falls forward, catching himself on one hand from his crouched position.
“I—it feels—I…”
Then the words refuse to come anymore.
“Why did you lie to me about being my mate?” I ask abruptly, deciding to speak if he cannot. I feel bold enough, strong enough to ask the question I thought I would never be able to voice again.
He looks at me, pained. “I did not wish to disrespect Adra’s memory. And to be honest, I had no idea that you were my mate. I didn’t want any mate.”
“No idea it was me?” I scoff. “Surely someone made a comment to you. They certainly did to me.”
He hesitates. “I…Yes. They did.”
I shift under the thick blanket. “And you just didn’t think it was true?”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t that. I just…wasn’t prepared to let someone into my life again.”
“You are stubborn,” I say. It isn’t a jab. It isn’t even flirtatious, just a fact.
“Perhaps I knew. Deep down. But I was good at severing and dicing parts of myself until they were too small to see or feel. I was a man half alive.” He reaches out toward me, then lets his hand fall. “Arlet, I know you carry wounds as well. I would never have judged you for those. If you had made mistakes because of them, I would not have cared. I just hope…that one day you can forgive me for being a fool. Until then, I will be here. At your side. Nearby.”
That makes me go quiet. He isn’t wrong. I was always plenty wounded. At times, I had thought perhaps too wounded.
“Sometimes I dislike how clearly you see me,” I admit.
“There are many things about you I feel I have never even touched, though I wish I could,” he says softly. “The mating bond makes it…hard to restrain myself.”
His response takes me off guard. “Oh?” I respond. “How?”