“I’m actually heading to my cave for a few days,” he said, moving around her to climb the spiral iron staircase to his study. “You can come with, if you want, but I’ll be there for a bit.”
“You know I go stir-crazy there,” she replied, her steps light as she followed him. “But I do need to speak with you.”
“We are speaking now.”
Feminine fingers wrapped around his forearm, tugging. “Razik, please. Can you stop for a minute?”
With an audible sigh of irritation, he turned to face her, crossing his arms. “What?”
“Okay, well, you don’t need to be a dick before I’ve even said anything,” she snapped, her own irritation flaring. When he only stared back at her, waiting for her to get on with it, she said, “Fine. I need to discuss our current arrangement.”
“What about it?”
“We both agreed that if a relationship came along with someone else, we would be transparent about it,” she ventured, the irritation bleeding back into trepidation.
“And?”
“…and that’s happened. I think?”
“You think?” he deadpanned. “If that were the case, you’d know, Wren.”
“Fine, then it has,” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “With Bram. And before you say anything, I know you don’t like him, and you think I’m being foolish about all this.”
“It’s your life, Wren,” he said, uncrossing his arms and turning away from her, even more ready to get the fuck out of here and retreat to his cave for a while.
“You don’t…” He heard her footsteps as she chased after him. “Razik, I’m trying to talk to you. He bought an estate house and wants me to live there with him.”
“You don’t need my permission,” he answered, picking up two books before rummaging through a desk drawer for a journal he’d been writing notes in.
“I know that, but you’re still a big part of all this,” she argued. “If you have strong feelings about this one way or another, I’d like to hear them.”
Slamming the drawer, he leveled his gaze on her. “I don’t care what you do, Wren. If you want to live with Bram, then do it.”
“You…don’t care?” she asked, her brows knitting together.
“No, I don’t.”
She nodded, at an obvious loss for words as she pressed her lips together. He turned away from her again, finding a leather bag to shove the books and journal into. He opened anotherdrawer and pulled out the last sack he’d collected from the sailors.
“Anything else?” he asked, grabbing both bags in one hand.
“You’re being cruel, and I don’t understand why,” Wren answered, lifting her chin in an effort to hide her hurt.
“I’m not being cruel. I’m being frank,” he said. “Like I always am.”
“Not with me,” she countered. “And we need to discuss what this would mean for us if I do this.”
“It would mean when I need you, I’ll come find you. It would mean we stop fucking. Inconvenient for me, but I’m sure I can find others. It would mean you’d become his responsibility and no longer mine,” he said apathetically. “You can let me know what you decide when I get back.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t hold back the two tears that slid down her face. “I don’t deserve that, and you know it.”
“We don’t deserve a lot of things in life. The Fates don’t give a fuck,” he replied, turning away from her.
“I can tell you my decision right now,” she bit out, the hurt and anger evident in the words. “Whenever you return, you can find me at Bram’s.”
“I expected nothing less,” he answered with a sneer.
“Fuck you, Razik Greybane,” she bit out. “Don’t come to find me until I let you know I’m ready to see you again.”
