Warder did not come to visit her.
The camp was still set up in town and the Sylphen had taken over a number of the larger public buildings. Lucy was staying in one of them--a former nature center that had been turned into a sort of medical facility. A Sylphen healer named Seastone came to see her every day. And a small contingent of warriors whose names she did not know always guarded the door.
The Sylphen were everywhere. Except for her mate.
Despite the stalled treaty negotiations, the warriors fortified their camp outside the town square. Lucy could see an abandoned house from the window of her room, ivy curling over the porch railings and rounding the edges of the roofline. Two days later, she woke up to find the ivy was gone. The boards had been removed from the windows, too, and the porch was cleanswept. The Sylphen were filling the empty spaces that had been left behind when the island was shut off from tourists.
At first, Lucy observed it all with some measure of indifference. Her leg ached and so did some other, distant part of her. An emptiness that she knew had to do with being abandoned, but that she refused to accept as her own. Warder must be forcing emotions on her through their bond.
Although, his absence suggested he hardly cared enough to do so.
Seastone worked on her injuries using that now-familiar blue light. Told her that she was lucky her kneecap hadn't shattered. "Then, it might have taken hours for you to begin to heal."
Hours. For injuries that should have left her helpless without access to the mainland hospital. If Seastone was so powerful, why didn't she try to protect the island? Ysabel's barrier was little more than wisps of clouds now, burning off more and more at each sunrise.
At first, Lucy felt so much better physically that she didn't understand why Seastone kept coming to see her. But after several nights of restless sleep, she realized that the healing, while remarkable, was incomplete. Her knee protested at the lack of movement while she lay in bed, but it also ached if she tried to walk more than a few steps.
She wondered if Warder was avoiding her not because he was angry, but because he suspected her current state would not allow for sex. She wanted to believe that was true, to convince herself that the bond between them that everyone made so much of was false and entirely physical.
But Warder, for all of his secretive ways and gruff silences, had seemed to enjoy spending time with her. Always, his eyes found hers when they were together in a room. His sheer focus on her when they weren't even touching sometimes felt as intimate as a caress.
Whatever kept him away, Lucy told herself she would be a fool not to appreciate the distance.
#
A few days into her convalescence, Cenia was the one to deliver her evening meal. Lucy was so happy to see her that it took a moment for her to realize what the horrible showdown in Ioanni's workshop meant for the other woman. Grace had been a scheming, manipulative person. She had also been Cenia's mother.
Lucy tried to offer her condolences. But Cenia's pale cheeks turned red and she shook her head and avoided Lucy's gaze until she fell silent.
"It is a shameful thing," said Cenia. "I should not speak of it."
"She was your mother," said Lucy. "There is no shame in being sad to lose someone, no matter how complicated."
But Cenia only shook her head. "Please stop. I do not want to talk about it. It is not the same as it would be for humans."
And as much as Lucy wanted to push to make sure Cenia was okay, she hesitated. It was the first time Cenia had taken pains to remind her of her human status as a barrier between them. She didn't want to risk the one person in her life right now who felt something like a real friend. Especially not after learning the truth about Sheera.
So, she dropped the subject. And she didn't comment when Cenia's face, usually bright and open, took on a pinched, far-away look. And because she did understand what it was like not to want to speak about certain things, she didn't ask Cenia about Warder, either.
Instead, she asked the question that had been on her mind since she met the healer. "Is Seastone an omega?"
"Yes," said Cenia, pleased, as always, at her interest in their shared dynamic. "Her healing power comes from the bond."
"If she has power like that, can't she help shield the island?"
"Most omega are more limited in their power than Ysabel." Cenia looked down at her hands, staring at them as if she wished she, too, could summon light.
Lucy wondered if that was part of the reason for the distance between Cenia and her mother. Grace seemed like the type who would have expected a powerful omega for a daughter. Someone useful for her own selfish ends.
She didn't ask. Not about Grace, and not about what it was that made Ysabel so different. Warder had already explained to her what she and Ysabel had in common. The reason that Lucy's powers might show themself to be "useful", too.
Their human heritage.
#
Cenia continued to visit, bringing most of her meals. They talked about all sorts of things -- questions Cenia had about the town and, sometimes, even questions Lucy had about omegas. But Lucy could not bring herself to ask about Warder. Instead, she asked if her parents could come visit. Cenia said she would find out and less than two hours later, they were at her bedside, staying until Seastone returned and shooed them away.
Lucy couldn't help but wonder why Cenia wasn't the one to bring Warder into the conversation. It had always bothered her before how she and Persephone deferred to him even when he wasn't there, as if he were omnipresent. Now, he haunted her and it seemed as if everyone had agreed not to speak of him. Was Warder angry that she had disobeyed his orders to go to the church? It was the first time she had asked for his trust and she had broken it. But could there be trust between them, considering how things had started? How they still
were?
The next morning, Seastone hummed a haunting, unhappy-sounding note while she palpated Lucy's knee. "It hasn't healed as completely as I would expect."
"It feels much better," said Lucy. She winced as Seastone triggered a sharp ache. "Mostly."
"Warder is young and newly mated," said Seastone. "Remind him that he must hold you. That his purr will bring you peace and speed the healing."
"Of...of course," said Lucy. She couldn't bring herself to say that Warder had not come to her. She was surprised the healer didn't know. Maybe Warder wasn't angry about what had happened. Maybe it had simply made him realize how very inconvenient a mate was going to be with danger encroaching on the island. She had no real proof that what she had been told about mating was true. The bond between them would surely fade if they both ignored it.
That night, she assured herself that she was right while she muffled hot, angry tears with her pillow.
#
The next morning, Cenia came earlier than usual. Her blond hair was smoothed into a neat bun at the nape of her neck and her face was flushed. The severe style only made her look more ethereally lovely. She had been training with the warriors. She may have seen Warder.
Still, Lucy could not bring herself to ask about him like a lovesick puppy. Instead, she asked after his shadow. "Is Persephone all right?"
"Yes," said Cenia, obviously surprised. "Did you want to see her?"
"No," said Lucy. "I just wondered."
She had hoped that Cenia would say, "she's with Warder." But it was as if Cenia was deliberately avoiding speaking his name, too. She pushed away the realization that she was dying to hear someone speak it. That knowing he existed and that others spoke of him as they always had would help her to settle into the melancholy emptiness she felt without him until she emerged on the other side.
There had to be another side.
"If you would like to visit your parents again, I can take you after breakfast. Seastone says your knee isn't completely healed, but walking will be beneficial now."
"Thank you," said Lucy, brightening slightly. In her parent's familiar house, she could pretend that she was whoever she had been before.
It had been six days now since the confrontation on the mountain. Six days since Warder had declared that his father ruled the world outside the island as a king. Six days that the strange sense of emptiness from his absence had grown within her, like waves--encroaching, receding, but never stopping, never silent.
"Are you ready?"
Lucy looked at her tray. It was still half-full. She had only nibbled at the edges of a piece of toast. Usually, Cenia worried over that sort of thing, encouraging her to eat. Today, she seemed distracted. In a hurry, even.
"Sure," said Lucy, ignoring her unease. Even Cenia might not wish to spend time with her. The woman was kind to a fault, but her loyalty was to Warder. Perhaps she knew that Lucy was no longer favored. "We can go."
"Oh, good!" said Cenia. "We can move slowly." Her body language belied her words. She was jittery, almost, moving from foot to foot like she had to slough off excess energy.
Lucy followed her into the hall, nodding to the guards who let them pass and then fell into step behind them. Within only a few feet, they found themselves stopped by a cart of cleaning supplies blocking the hallway.
A woman scurried out of the room next door, carrying a plastic spray bottle. She startled at the small crowd and rushed to push the cart out of the way. "Making my rounds," she said. "No one told me..."
"It's fine!" said Cenia brightly. She stepped a little further down the hall and wiggled past the cart until her back was to the faded wallpaper. "We'll move out of the way!"
Lucy realized that Cenia was beckoning to her. She glanced back at the guards, bemused, and cautiously squeezed herself closer to Cenia. "We are more in the way here than..." she stopped, something catching her attention about the room where the cleaning lady was rapidly tidying.
The small room wasn't much to look at. It was the mirror to her own, the same high window and a metal bed frame with sheets stretched over a thin mattress in military style. There were papers scattered on the floor and a pile of laundry on a wooden chair that the woman was setting to rights. It should have been unremarkable, but Lucy's senses were changing. Warder's scent hung in the empty air.
Lucy looked at Cenia and the other woman ducked her head in acknowledgement. She hadn't been fooled by the fact that Lucy refused to ask for details about Warder. Because of what she was, she knew how Lucy felt. And she was showing her that Warder had never been far away.
Lucy's stomach clenched at the sight of another woman tidying Warder's things. Casually touching the space he occupied. Close, but distant. "Why?" she asked quietly, mindful of the guards.
Cenia shook her head. "He wants to know you are all right," she said quietly.
"He's avoiding me."
"He's been here every night."
Lucy wasn't sure what to make of that. Warder had not hidden from her before. More importantly, he had not hidden
her
from others. He had paraded her through the dining hall after they were mated. He had threatened to
knot her there at the table
if she denied him. And now he was hiding without any explanation.
