“I know.” She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. “And I’m not angry about that. Not exactly. I just?—”
She broke off, and he waited patiently.
“Sometimes it feels like you’re always preparing for me to leave,” she said finally, her voice small and uncertain.
Every muscle in his body went still.
“You make sure I know the other sleeping cave is still mine. You make sure I know I can say no. You make sure I know I can go with you or stay behind when you leave.” She looked down at her hands, avoiding his eyes. “You make sure I know I don’t owe you anything.”
“Because you don’t.”
“I know that.”
She looked up at him then, tears beginning to gather in her eyes.
“But you never say, ‘I want you here.’ You never say, ‘I don’t want you to sleep in the other cave.’ You never say, ‘I hate the idea of you leaving me.’” Her mouth trembled. “You give me every possible exit, Njkall, and sometimes I don’t know whether that’s because you love me enough to let me go or because losing me wouldn’t hurt you as much as losing you would hurt me.”
Her voice broke on the last words, and he closed the distance between them before he thought better of it, then caught himself and stopped just short of touching her.
“Polly.”
She looked away again.
“No.” His voice had roughened. “Look at me.”
After a long, agonizing moment, she finally looked back at him.
“Losing you would destroy me.”
She went completely still.
He hadn’t meant to say it that way, but perhaps there was no better way. He sat back on his heels, every cautious instinct he’d learned over the past year telling him to soften the words, qualify them, make certain she understood that his feelings were not her responsibility. For once, he did none of those things.
“Do you want to know what I truly want?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
His heart was pounding hard enough that he could feel it beneath his ribs.
“I want you here. With me.”
Tears started to trickle down her cheeks, but he forced himself to keep going. Forced himself not back away.
“I want you in my quarters. I want you in my bed. I want to wake with your hair in my face and find your beads under my feet and listen to you argue with me about things you know perfectly well you’re wrong about.”
Despite the tears, her mouth twitched.
“I’m rarely wrong.”
“You’re wrong constantly.” He kept going before his courage failed him. “I want to walk into this cave and know you’ll be here. I want to walk into any room and look for you first. I want every ordinary day you’ll give me, little one.”
Her breath hitched.
“And I want more than that.”
The fire cracked softly between one breath and the next.
“I want you as my mate.”
