“Good morning, little weaver.” He watched me closely.
“Morning.” I answered politely, but continued to read my book.
His presence filled the space like gravity itself. I could feel him standing there, waiting. He was watching me, and clearly he wasn’t leaving until I looked at him. My gaze flickered up over my book at his face, and for a second, I almost softened, until I remembered how easily he could wound me again, with the excuse of not meaning to.
“Did you need something?”
He frowned slightly. The look in his eyes almost made me want to apologize for my own distance, but I didn’t.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
He frowned slightly before looking at the cup of tea. His expression shifted, uncertain. Maybe he was trying; maybe this was his way.
“I made you tea.”
I nodded and glanced at the steaming cup. The effort twisted something deep in my chest.
“Oh, thanks.”
My gaze moved back to the book, though the words blurred together. I tried to ignore him gawking at me, tried to keep my face unreadable even as the tension pulsed between us like a heartbeat.
“What are your plans for today?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.”
I saw him nod slightly before glancing around the house like he was looking for something to fill the silence. The pause stretched until it felt like it might snap. Then he turned back toward me.
“I was thinking we could do something together.”
I looked up at him. What was he doing? Was this guilt talking, or something else?
“That’s all right. I’m sure you’ve got things to do for work. And I might go to a coven meeting.”
He perked up at this tidbit of information, his eyes sharpening like he’d just heard something important.
“Do you need me to come?”
“No.” There was no coven meeting, but I didn’t want him hovering around me all day. I needed space to breathe, to untangle what last night had done to me.
“Elowyn, I don’t like that you’re upset with me.”
I closed my book and grabbed the cup of tea, taking a sip of it. The taste was awful, too bitter, but I swallowed it anyway because he’d made it. Gods, the man may be a god, but he couldn’t make tea to save his life.
“I’m not upset.”
I wasn’t. Disappointed, sure, but not upset. There needed to be clear boundaries between us because I would be the one getting hurt, not him. I couldn’t fall into the delusion that Abram, the godsdamn God of Fate, wanted me in any sense of the word. His shoulders fell.
Abram dropped it verbally, but he went to his little desk that had all sorts of tools on it and grabbed some things before coming to sit beside me. The couch dipped beneath his weight, the space between us shrinking in a way that made my pulse race despite everything.
I glanced to see what he was doing. He held a block of wood that looked small in his big hands. Abram started shaving chunks of it off, the quiet scrape of his knife filling the silence between us. His brow furrowed, focused—gentle in a way that didn’t match his temper.
I went back to reading, but I couldn’t stop watching how gently Abram carved the wood, the tension in his jaw easing with every slow motion. There was something intimate about it, like a man trying to speak without words.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked without looking at me.
“Yes, but I’m not promising an answer.”
