Trade (Deridia Book 2) by Catherine Miller

Author:Catherine Miller [Miller, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

15. Trust

Machrus stared at her. “You have been married before?”

His voice was calm. Inquisitive, but not outright hostile. That did not make her feel any better.

“No,” she whispered, shame coursing through her. It was far from uncommon in the colony—babies were plentiful, though children were comparatively few, as were the couples that claimed matrimony. But that did not help her situation now, when she felt her place here so tenuous, when he would see that she had been a dreadful choice to play wife to him.

Machrus’s mouth tightened. “And your people permit this?”

Her throat felt raw. “Which part? The... the conceiving?” Her cheeks flamed just to think of it, of that progression of time that had led to... to Maisie. Those events seemed separate to her, though realistically she knew they were not.

“No,” Machrus rebuffed forcefully. “That a man should get you with child without also being required to take you to wife.”

“Oh,” she murmured, trying to find an adequate response. “They... he wasn’t... he wasn’t really that sort of man.”

She had thought he was. He had been kind and attentive after her parents had been given up for dead. He had sat with her and held her close as she cried, had told her she was loved—that he loved her.

And she blindly, foolishly, stupidly had believed all of it, so desperate was she for it to be so.

Machrus said nothing for a long while, and she had to wait there, uncertain if he was angry—and for the first time, she wished she understood how to use the bond herself. She felt wretched for thinking it, but that did not change the desire. In theory, she could slip into his mind, could see what he was thinking, feeling, and adjust her own excuses accordingly.

Except even as she considered that little glowing warmth, it felt closed and immovable, and so she sat, and waited, and fidgeted.

Until she could take the silence no longer.

“Say something. Please.”

A grunt was his only reply.

Renna sighed, shuffling a little closer. He did not move away, but she could see the tenseness in him. “Are you... are you angry with me?”

He did not deny it, his cool eyes coming to meet hers, green and glittering. “Why would you choose such a man?” That was not a denial, and her stomach clenched. She’d known better than to confide in him!

She sat back, rubbing her fingers against her soft leggings, wishing her heart didn’t ache so much. “I... it was after my parents died. He... he was kind and... there and...” she swiped at her cheeks, brushing away her tears. “I hadn’t intended for us to... to be that way... with each other. I’d seen the other couples... so many babies and too little medicine, too little food...”

Renna felt him watching her, and she sniffed indelicately. There was nothing else to say, really, and she sat staring at the water beyond, softly rushing, grenpeets shuffling and bleating in equal turns.

She was startled when Machrus drew closer. She was always surprised by how much larger he was than she, their close proximity allowing no room for doubt.

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