Page 93 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

Was she putting too much pressure on him too soon?

She had snapped at him when he had said she was impatient, but the truth was that she was. There was no reason to wait forever for something that could already be theirs.

Sometimes people needed a push for their own good.

Her bedroom was at the end of the corridor, past the room that had been his for two weeks and was now a guest room again. It was large and comfortable. There was a seating area with a couch and an armchair, a television on the wall opposite the bed, and a fireplace that no one ever lit because it rarely got cold enough for that. The king-sized bed sat on a low platform at the back of the room. Beyond it was the closet that even her extensive wardrobe did not fill, and a bathroom with a tub built for two, a shower built for two, and a vanity with two sinks, of which she had only ever used one.

She went into the closet and looked at the changes Oridu had made.

Her gowns had moved to the left wall, hung closer together, and the ones she had grown tired of were folded on the shelf above, ready for whichever charity Amanda decided to donate them to. On the right were Khiann's shirts, slacks, and belts. Three pairs of shoes were on the bottom shelf under the slacks and a pair of slippers he had not worn yet because they were too smooth-soled for someone who was not sure-footed.

She took a nightgown from the drawer and went through to the bathroom. His toothbrush and comb were on the vanity beside the sink she had never used.

The sight made her more emotional than it should have, and as her eyes misted, she shook her head and turned on the shower.

Once she was done, she slipped into the nightgown and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.

It was not much different from the gowns she wore during the day--soft silk, loose and long--because she liked to be comfortable at all times, not just when she was in bed.

Some of the fashions humans had adopted throughout her life had been downright silly. In her opinion, everyone should dress for comfort first, and everything else should be secondary.

When she came back into the bedroom, she noticed that Oridu had laid out Khiann's pajamas on top of the bed.

She looked at them and hoped he would not put them on.

But she did not know what he would choose to do. The Khiann she remembered had never been bashful about his nudity or anything else, but this Khiann did not remember that.

He might be shy.

His body was rebuilding at an astonishing rate, but it was still too lean, and he might not want her to see him without clothing.

She would let him decide, and until then she would keep her nightgown on. She could always take it off later.

Annani sat on the couch and picked up a book she had been reading for the past week.

Khiann came in a few minutes later with the laptop under one arm and leaning on the crutch with the other. He set the laptop on the coffee table.

"Do you want to watch an episode in bed?" she asked. "I can connect it to the far vision and put it on the large screen. The bed is on a platform, so it is even more comfortable to watch from there than from the couch."

She was talking as if she were an expert on watching films in bed, when the truth was that she had rarely turned the television on. Most nights, she read a little before falling asleep, and on nights that she was particularly troubled, she listened to an audio narration of something light and sweet.

"Not tonight," he said.

That was surprising. Since Vrog had brought the program, they had watched two episodes almost every night.

"Are you tired?" she asked.

"A little. And I am not in the mood for a history lesson." He looked into the bathroom through the open door. "This is much bigger than the one in my room." He gathered his pajamas and went to investigate.

"Your former room." She rose and followed him in. "Now it is back to being a guest room."

He turned to her and nodded, then went back to admiring the whirlpool tub.

"That is a very large tub," he said.

"It also has built-in jets that massage your muscles. I do not use it much because it is so big and I feel silly getting into a tub that large by myself. But now we can enjoy it together."

"Maybe some other day," he said, smiling tightly. "One step at a time."