I honestly can’t tell if this is on purpose or just what Kovan’s like for everyone? It seems like it couldn’t possibly be just for me?
But as soon as we get back to the cottage, he takes the crock from his pack and butters me a piece of the bread that he baked for me.
Then while I chop some vegetables for sandwiches, because Kovan still doesn’t know how to put together a meal, it’s like he’s constantlytherewithout me having to think about it.
A steady presence.
Yet somehow he’s also everywhere?
Kovan finds a basket for the amazing fruit Noten gifted me with. He puts a glass of water right into my hand and waits until I take a sip and then discover I was parched and down the whole glass. He updates his accounting of our food options. He washes my bread plate. He unpacks my new loot into the workshop.
IfIwere trying to do all these things, I’d lose track of my plan between one task and the next. I’d look like I was fluttering, thewind blowing me around, and yet there’s a weight to Kovan; a presence.
An anchor.
As soon as Kovan confirms that I’m done eating, he whisks my plate away to wash the way I taught him and I finally burst out, “Okaywhatis going on here?”
He glances back over his shoulder at me with eyebrows arched and hands deep in soapy water and why does that look sexy? How?
“Could you be more specific?” Kovan asks.
I gesture wildly around. “This. You. You don’t have to do all this.”
Good work, Tasa, very clear.
“Ah.” He carefully puts the dishes away; towels his hands dry slowly.
I will absolutely not be jealous of a towel.
“You are referring, then,” Kovan says, “to someone actually trying to take care ofyou, for a change?”
My heart thumps.
Shit. Thatiswhat I mean, isn’t it?
“I don’t want to be a burden toyouany more than you want to be one to me,” I manage softly. “I didn’t mean to obligate you into anything. You have your own problems—”
Kovan turns to face me, golden eyes glowing, leaning all his lithe strength back against my kitchen counter like he is trying not to be intimidating and instead just managing to be the sexiest person alive.
Uh oh.
“You haven’t forced me to do anything except decide what I want,” he says, still in that very steady, controlled tone. “And Iwantto do this, Tasa.”
“Dishes? No one wants to do dishes.” Surely?
“Take care of you. And that no one has wanted to do that before is a symptom of a deeper imbalance than what Yora’s detonation revealed.”
What? “It’s not some cosmic problem, it’s just because no one actually likes me that much,” I say, reasonably.
And get a very unreasonable darkening of his expression in response.
“That,” Kovan growls, “is very incorrect.”
“That there’s a big issue in Crystal Hollow—oh.” I break off faintly, swallowing hard as he advances on me deliberately. “You—you meant the other thing, didn’t you.”
Kovan’s in front of me now, and I want to melt into a puddle on the floor in embarrassment but I’m rooted to the spot, staring up into his golden gaze as my face—and maybe somewhere else—heats from the fierceness of his regard.
Maybe now I am finally beginning to understand what a sufficiently motivated sage of resolve is capable of—
