Page 55 of The Rake OR The Orca Who Met His Match in a Selkie Desiring Revenge
Next to her, Elspeth felt him tense. “What did I say?”
She owed him honesty, at least. Didn’t she? “Do you… want to break the bond?” Her voice sounded so small, but sheneededto know.
Aegir was quiet for a moment. It stretched on and on, and Elspeth grew so nervous that she felt she might sick up.
“No, I don’t think I do.” He turned to face her fully, and laid his hand on the table, palm up, in invitation for hers. “I have never felt anything like I feel for you. And when we thought that the bond might be influencing our emotions… I’ll admit I wanted to know, and that I ascribed the depth of my feelings to that. When I read that it hadn’t been, I was elated, but I also immediately wanted to findyoua way out. I don’t want you to be trapped with me, Elspeth. I want you tochooseme. So, yes, I wanted to make sure we could break our bond, because that way, if we keep it, if youdecideto keep it, it’s because youwantedit. You wanted us.”
Sniffling, Elspeth nodded. She leaned forward,needingto connect with him, and pressed her lipsto his.
The knowledge of theirbond, and its bounds, thickened Elspeth’s thoughts as they left the library and bought her some knives and holsters. She was fitted for them and ostensibly gave feedback on them, but most of it passed in a blur.
Before long, they returned to Cat and Torsten’s only to find that Jokith had arrived withThe Lady’s Revenge. The cozy house was full of noise and happiness, and Aegir fell into the same very joking pattern of behavior that he’d exhibited the night before. He chased the children around, and slapped his friends on the back, but Elspeth felt oddly removed from it, as if she were watching it all through a window. This Aegir was so different from the one she’d begun to know, he was so much more gentle with her. She’d come to think of the Aegir she knew as the truest version of him, but perhaps she didn’t actually know him at all. If this is who he was with his friends, perhaps he only treated her with caution because of her trauma. Was she, then, dooming him to a life of pretending?
“Are you well?” he asked after supper. “You seem quiet.”
“It’s been… quite the day.”
“Would you like to go to bed? We can stay on the ship tonight.”
“We can?”
“Of course, let me just say goodnight.” Aegir hugged his friends and fetched their bags from upstairs before leading Elspeth back out into the evening. Another winding walk through the city brought them to a cove, still housed inside the mountain, and tension released from her shoulders upon seeing the strange little ship.
Once they were aboard and changed, they climbed into bed and Elspeth scooted back to Aegir’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in warmth. After the ups and downs and the overwhelming din of Cat and Torsten’s house, being snuggled up with him was perfection.
“So…” he said. “My condolences.”
She turned her head to look back at him. “What? Why?”
“You have terrible taste. You actually like me, it’s not the bond.”
“You’re such a menace!Thatis what you got out of today? Not thatyoumust actually like me too?”
“Oh, I already decided I didn’t care.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“That it felt too good, I didn’t care if it was artificial. I didn’t want it to end.”
“A menace and a sap?” she teased, reaching back to poke him.
“Excuse me, I prefer being a ‘pathetic sod.”
“I see, I see, one visit to a library and you’re all pretentious now! Is this the newest version of you? Scholar Aegir?”
He chuckled behind her. “No, I don’t think I can manage another. Plus, I am a bit of a scholar in all of them, I like to think.”
“You’d have to be, to keep them all straight!” She huffed. She really didn’t know how he kept them all straight, she certainly couldn’t. Every time she closed her eyes he was someone different, or what she thought she knew about one changed.
He squeezed her and breathed into her hair. “In all seriousness though, I’m relieved, even if I am pathetic.”
“So am I.”
“Aw, we can be pathetic together!”
He growled into her neck, and she giggled, trying to push his head away. He laughed and captured her between his teeth, right where her shoulder and neck met. She froze, an instinctual prey response, but his tongue darted out and tickled the skin he'd caught. He sucked the skin and ran his hands up into her hair.
"Right here," he whispered into her neck, "Right here is where I'll bite you."