“I know.” He raked his hand through his hair again. “You did tell me. Clearly and repeatedly. You’re right. I just wanted to do more.Bemore. I wanted to help.”
“I know how bad it looked. How dreadfulIlooked.”
“What are you talking about?” He rubbed at his face, which bore the markings of his telescope. “You didn’t turn into a werewolf. Nothing I’ve seen has made you less desirable to me.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she said softly. “Youturned into a werewolf. You clawed your way through and started pawing at me.”
“I thought you were hurt!”
“Youwere hurting me.”
“I stopped as soon as you said so. Almost as soon.” He looked stricken. “If you’d warned me earlier…”
“It’smybody. It’s up to me what I share with others.”
“That’s true. And this is my body. It can’t read minds. If there’ssomething you want me to know, or a way that you want me to act… You’re going to have to tell me so. Out loud. With words.”
Stephen… was right. Elizabeth couldn’t expect him to intuit what she needed from thin air. He couldn’t think her thoughts or feel her pain levels, much less guess her preferences or emotional state.
It wasn’t just a matter of communicating competently. She had learned young that her best advocate—for years, her only advocate—was herself. She’d explained her wishes to her adoptive family two decades ago. So long past that she’d forgotten her siblings hadn’t materialized already knowing what she needed. Especially since Elizabeth had done such a good job of keeping everyone else at arm’s length.
If she was going to let Stephen in—if she was going to expect him to act as though he knew her as well as her siblings did—then she would have to lower her shields and expose who she truly was.
“All right. Here are some words.” She leaned on her cane. “If you feel you absolutely must intervene, please ask for permission before you meddle where you’re not wanted. Then fully and immediately respect the answer. If the reply is ‘stay away’ or ‘stop asking’… then you muststay awayandstop asking. It’s not ‘help’ if it goes against the person’s direct wishes. And for the love of God, please don’t attempt to ‘fix’ someone without an explicit invitation.”
“I wasn’t trying to fix you… exactly. I was fussing because… I wanted to show you I was on your side. That I cared. That I was fighting alongside you.”
“You have to be invited to fight at someone’s side. Teams aren’t teams because one person decides something is wrong with the other person.”
He let out a long breath. “You’re right. Teams become a cohesive unit when they choose each other and decide what and how to fight together.”
“Yes.” She bit her lip. “Do you remember when I said I was fifty-five percent Elizabeth?”
“I remember.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I still cannot fathom how muchmoreElizabeth you could become.”
“Today, I’m at sixty percent. Yesterday, a high in the forties. The night before that, after the duel… Essentially nothing. By the time I crawled into my bedchamber, there was no Elizabeth left. Zero percent remaining.” She tried to smile and couldn’t. “Bean abhorred my percentages.”
Stephen’s eyebrows lifted. “He did? Why?”
“He said I was always ‘optimal Elizabeth’ because I was always me. Never lesser than anything or anyone.” She swallowed. “When he first found me, I judged myself a zero, no matter what my body was currently doing.”
Stephen looked outraged.
“The swords were my way of proving to Bean that I was as valuable and strong as any warrior. That I was of worth, every single day. One hundred percent. Bean said the swords didn’t matter. He accepted all parts of me, just as they were. All he wanted was to nurture me to grow into myself.” Her voice cracked. “I had never experienced anything like it.”
“Your birth family was less understanding?”
“They couldn’t find any visible injuries. So they didn’t believe I was in pain, and they punished me for lying.” New pain meted on top of existing pain… How she had tried to block out those memories. “Eventually, they did believe me.”
“Did that make them accept you more… or less?”
“They didn’t want me at all. If I couldn’t perform the tasks assigned, then I became an unnecessary mouth to feed. They told me I was weak, and worthless. They sent me to live with my grandparents, who sent me to live with an aunt and uncle I did not know, whotraded me to a merchant and his wife in exchange for an old dog cart. To them, the cart was the better investment. At least it was useful.”
He winced.
“None of my relatives ever came back around to check on me. One day, when I felt an astonishing seventy-five percent, I ran away from the merchant. I doubted anyone would come for me. Who would pick up rubbish from the side of the road?”
“How far did you go?”
