Chapter 95: Both

Azura’s POV

Liona was still looking at me.

That face. The one that said, ’I do not know what to do with myself, and I am not even trying to pretend otherwise right now.’ She was sitting in the water near me with her hands in her lap and her eyes wide and that expression just sitting there on her face like it had moved in and had no plans to leave.

I looked back at her.

"How do you know?" I asked. "How did you feel it? How are you sure?"

"You were standing right there," she said. "You saw how we looked at each other. You saw what happened."

I thought back to that mysterious man with horns in the smoke. And Liona, behind me, went completely still with her hand pressed flat against her chest, and that sound she made that was barely even a word.

Yeah. I had seen it.

"Okay," I said. "I did see that."

Liona looked at the water and shook her head slowly. The particular head shake of someone having a private argument with the universe and losing on every point.

"I do not even know why the Moon Goddess hates me this much," she said. "Torin just rejected me. My heart was not even done hurting. Not even close to done. And instead of giving me time to heal, instead of giving me what I actually needed, she decided it was the perfect moment to give me a mate." She paused. "An old one. She gave me an old man as a mate. What kind of sense does that even make?"

I pressed my lips together to keep my face neutral. "Okay. We don’t actually know that yet?"

She looked at me like the answer was obvious. "Did you not see his hair? Completely white. White hair means someone has been alive for a very long time. And he was covering his entire face on top of that. Probably because he already knows what is under the mask and does not want anyone else to find out."

"I have white hair," I said.

She stopped.

Looked at me.

"Yours is different," she said. "Yours is cute and beautiful."

I gave her the look. The specific one that said ’Really? Is that what we are doing right now?’

She did not back down from it at all.

"What am I even supposed to do with this?" she said. "How am I supposed to live with this thing?"

I looked at her properly. The way she was sitting, the way her eyes kept moving, and the way she could not quite settle on one expression because too many things were competing for the same space on her face.

"Are you more worried about him being an old man?" I asked. "Or are you more worried about him attacking our pack house?"

She turned and looked at me. Something shifted in her expression. Not the guilt exactly. More like someone being caught in the middle of a thought they had not planned to share. A small smile crossed her face. Not a happy one. The kind that came when someone had just accepted two bad things at the same time and found the combination almost funny.

"Both," she said. "Honestly I am worried about both."

I nodded. That was fair.

"Liona," I said. "If that man was actually your mate and both of us left the pack house together, what do you think he is doing right now?"

She looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"You literally just told me he is your mate," I said. "And that man called me a thief. He stood in that corridor and looked right at me and said he had been looking for me for a long time. So if he finds out that his mate has gone missing with the same thief he already saw standing right in front of her, what do you think goes through his head?"

Liona was quiet.

"He would think I kidnapped you," I said. "Obviously. That is exactly what he would think."

"But how would going back actually help?" she said. "If we go back just to prove you did not kidnap me, how does that fix anything? We would just be walking back into the same danger we just ran away from."

"Mates calm each other down," I said. "That is how it works. If he gets to a point where he is completely out of control, you might be the only one who can actually stop him."

She looked at me. One eyebrow going up slightly.

"Really?" she said. "Because that does not seem to be working very well between you and Rhydor."

"Forget about him," I said. "He is not the point right now."

"You brought it up."

"Can you just focus on what I am trying to tell you?" I said. "If he is actually your mate he may think I took you, against your will. That is the actual problem we need to be thinking about right now."

She was quiet for a moment. I could see it landing properly this time, the thought settling into place in her head and connecting to everything else around it.

"That actually makes sense," she said.

"Yes," I said. "It does, weren’t you listening to me?"

I exhaled and leaned back slightly in the water.

"Whatever happens we stay here for now," I said. "We stick together. We figure this out together. Okay?"

"Okay," she said.

The water was warm around us and quiet for a moment. Just the two of us sitting in it with everything we had just said hanging in the air between us, not heavy exactly, just present.

Then Liona looked at me with that expression. The one she wore when she had been sitting on a question for a while and had finally decided to let it out.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"What?"

"If your mate," she said carefully, "turned out to be much older than you expected. Like genuinely much older than you thought. Would you still choose him?"

I opened my mouth and closed it.

I sat with that for a moment. Actually sat with it properly instead of just reaching for the first answer that came.

"Since the Goddess puts mates together for a reason," I said slowly. "If he was older than I expected but he was someone who genuinely saw me and loved me for who I actually am." I paused. "I think I would give it a chance."

Liona looked at me with the expression of someone watching another person be slower than they should be about something sitting right in front of them.

"Yes," she said simply. "Exactly. Everything in this world happens for a reason."

She exhaled after that. Long and deep, the kind of breath that had been sitting in someone’s chest since a smoky corridor in a pack house under attack and had finally found its way out completely.

"I was even hoping my mate would be more handsome than Torin," she said. "You know, so it would at least help me get over him faster. Give my heart something new to focus on." She looked at the water. "But from the little I saw, I honestly do not know if I will ever heal from this broken heart."

"Do not judge too much from the little you have seen," I said. "You have not seen everything yet. For now, we just stay safe and take care of each other. That is what matters right now."

She looked at me for a moment. Something in her face loosened. That particular thing that happened when a person had been carrying something alone for too long and had finally put it down somewhere safe.

"I feel better," she said. "Just from saying it out loud. I actually feel a little better."

"That is exactly why you have me," I said.

She smiled. A real one this time. Small and warm and completely herself.

"Thank you," she said.

I reached over and knocked my shoulder lightly against hers.

"Come on," I said. "Let us get out before we turn into fish."

****

We got dressed and followed the passage back through the sitting room and pushed open the door to the outside.

Torin was not there.

The space where he had been splitting wood was empty. The axe was leaning against the wall by itself. We looked around the open area in front of the dwelling. Nothing. No sign of him in either direction.

Then I saw the bench.

Along the side of the house, a simple wooden bench sits against the outer wall with a small table in front of it. And on the table, two plates. Set out neatly, waiting.

Liona and I walked over.

I reached out and touched the food.

She reached out at exactly the same moment and touched hers.

We both looked up at the same time.

The food was completely cold. Not slightly cool. Completely, thoroughly, definitively cold. The kind of cold that took a significant amount of time to achieve.

Liona looked at me.

I looked at her.

Neither of us said anything about how long we had apparently been in that bathhouse.

I sat down on the bench and picked up my plate.

"Come on," I said. "Let us eat and then explore a little. It is kind of boring just sitting here."

Liona sat down beside me and picked up her own plate.

The food was cold, and Torin was nowhere, and we were sitting outside an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar place with no idea where the person who had brought us here had disappeared to.

But at least Liona was smiling now.

That was enough for now. But something else decided to ruin that moment.

My eyes went wide, "My journal!!"

Liona looked up at me confused, "Huh?"