WAIT FOR LOVE (Lovemark #4)

2. Unity

2

Unity

Meanwhile Where: At the Tipton Ladies AcademyTwisting a piece of scarlet hair around my finger, I hissed out a disgusted groan and shook my head as I read what I’d just written.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, wadding the piece of parchment into a ball before throwing it onto the floor in frustration, where it landed among a pile of other discarded notes that I also had no plans to send. “That won’t do at all.”

I swear, the letter had been just as pathetic and insipid as all the others I’d composed before it. It had said:

Dear Olivander, I want to come home now. Love, Unity

The one before it had been worse, though. I’d actually asked him for permission. As if I had no say in the comings and goings of my own life.

Mindlessly, I had written:

Dear Olivander, May I come home now? Love, Unity

I mean, could I sound any more childish than that? He didn’t own me or my decisions. He was no longer my guardian. We were supposed to be partners in all things now. And this was no way for a partner to approach a new idea. He’d have no respect for me whatsoever if I started this next phase of our lives together with a question like that.

So I grabbed a new sheet and wrote:

Dear Olivander, I’m coming home now. Love, Unity.

But, no, that definitely wouldn’t work. It sounded rude and overbearing. My return should be just as much his decision as it was mine. We should have an equal say, like—well—partners. As I’d just said.

I tried again.

Dear Olivander, What do you think about the idea of me coming home soon? Love, Unity.

Hmm. That one had potential. It opened a dialogue into the issue, didn’t sound pushy, and most importantly didn’t leave me looking like a brainless, begging schoolgirl.

Right, then. It was decided. I’d send this one.

First thing tomorrow, I’d visit the academy’s coop and have the fastest pigeon or raven available deliver my message.

It felt like the right choice, and yet my stomach churned with anxiety as soon as I made it.

Because honestly...

How would he react? He’d never denied me anything before, and I certainly couldn’t picture him starting now, but he’d never broached the subject of me returning home either.

Did he want me to come home yet?

His correspondences on the subject had always been so vague, making it sound like some far-off future event we never had to worry about.

Of course, I was guilty of the same avoidance. After graduating from the academy, which had separated me from Olivander for years, I had asked the headmistress to keep me on as a tutor instead of going home to him then. I wasn’t completely sure why I’d done that. I guess I just hadn’t felt ready yet.

Because returning home meant it was time for us to take our place as husband and wife, and thus do grown-up, mate-type things together.

Two years ago, the very notion had scared the bejesus out of me.

It wasn’t because I didn’t love him, though. I did. With everything I had and was. He was the most important person in my world. He always would be. I’d just never seen him in a passionate light before, and so imaging us in, you know, that way had quite honestly freaked me out.

But then...

I don’t know. Things had started to change. Inside me. I began to think about it more. And then, after sneaking a few naughty forbidden scrolls from the headmistress’s private collection and reading about intimate activities between mates, I started to think about it differently. I began to crave things.

I began to crave him.

I was still scared about seeing him again, especially now that I understood in more detail the kinds of activities that were supposed to transpire between us, but it seemed like less of an overwhelming-and-frightening scary and more of a curious-and-nervous scary.

Being older, Olivander would’ve already known all this for a while, long before I’d gone to the academy. Hell, probably before I’d even been born. He would’ve had years to deal with the overwhelming portion of the fear, and he’d had his time to adjust, so I hoped he was also now at the curious and nervous stage that I was in.

But there was only one way to know for sure.

Except just coming right out and asking him about it seemed so utterly daunting. Which was strange. When I’d been young, I’d known Olivander better than anyone, and I had asked him every question that entered my head. I’d always been secure in the fact that I could talk to him about anything. He was mine, and we would always be together.

The marks told us so.

Over time, however, with the distance between us—where I could no longer feel his emotions through his mark and know his heart and mind about every issue—he began to feel more and more like a stranger. That was probably also because I had changed so much myself, though, and not because of anything he’d done. But still, it made this spot inside me ache with the loss of what we’d once had.

I was beyond ready to regain a connection with him again, no matter how nervous I was. So I fervently hoped my message was met with ready acceptance.

It would be, I assured myself logically, attempting to ignore the nerves. This was Olivander I was talking about. He was the kindest, most loyal, trustworthy man I knew. I could rely on him to make things right between us again.

I just knew it.

Breathing out a steadying breath to calm my racing pulse back to normal, I sat at my dressing table and picked up my pearl-handled hairbrush—part of the elaborate grooming set Olivander had sent me last year for my birthday—and I began to pull the bristles through my massive length of shocking red hair.

A hundred strokes every night. That was part of my bedtime regime.

It felt different tonight, though. Meeting my own lavender-gray gaze in the reflection of the mirror over the vanity—both also a part of last year’s birthday present—I watched myself as I brushed with continuous, monotonous movements. For some reason, it felt like the end of an era, as if I already knew this was the last time I’d ever do this in my dorm room at the academy.

Which was absurd, of course.

Even if Olivander did agree that it was time I came home, it would take over a week for the messages to move back and forth between us, then probably another week before he sent his own private guards to escort me back and even longer to actually return. I was looking at a moon cycle of time before seeing him again, at the least.

Reaching a hundred, I set the brush aside and glanced at my final draft.

You know what; maybe I wasn’t ready to send the note after all.

I went to reach for it and wad it into a crumpled ball so it could join its predecessors on the floor, but then I stopped myself.

No. I could do this. No matter what happened, I’d deal with the results.

Stiffening my spine, I squared my shoulders and sat up straighter, lifting my chin and examining the woman I’d become.

I’d probably grown another half a foot after I’d left Olivander and come to the academy. My hair seemed thicker and was no doubt longer. And the baby fat that had once lined my face had dropped down to line my hips and amply pad the front of my chest now. I wasn’t even sure if he’d recognize me with the angled jawline, sharp cheekbones, and pointed chin I’d developed.

He was definitely going to be in for a shock when he discovered my tattoo, that was for sure. With the thin straps of the black nightgown I wore, there was no hiding its opulence.

A few years back, I’d snuck out with some of the girls when I’d technically still been under Olivander’s guardianship to get it. Brilliant red roses perched on the top of my shoulder, draping over my bicep and down my back with an intricate, curling pattern. It was large and obvious.

I absolutely loved the design, but at the time, I’d been too afraid to tell Olivander about it, worried how he might react to my getting it without ensuring his permission first. And then later, when I was old enough to not need his permission—well, it just seemed like I’d lied to him by that point.

So that was a hurdle we’d have to cross when we saw each other again. But I was ready to cross it. Because I wanted to go home.

Resolved to jump over whatever bumps fate had in store for me, I rose from the dressing table and approached the bed, wondering what it’d be like to crawl under the blankets on my wedding night, where Olivander would be waiting for me to join him.

Butterflies rose in my stomach. I’d probably crept into his bedchamber hundreds of times when I was little. And he’d done the same to me. We both slept better when we appeased our marks and rested side by side. But there’d never been anything s****l about it in our youth.

Now, however, I had a feeling sharing a bed with him would be full of s****l energy. And that was as weird for me to comprehend as it was exciting.

Lifting the covers, I slid between the sheets and then reached for my lantern on my bedside table. After turning the little dial to disconnect the cotton wick from the oil, I snuffed out the flame, and the room plummeted into darkness. Then, I released a breath and rolled onto my side to hook one leg over the large pillow I slept against before resting my cheek on the top part of it.

The cushion was my replacement for Olivander.

At home, I’d slept on my side, draped over him, while he’d slept on his back, holding me close to his side. And after coming to the academy, I’d commissioned a pillow to be his replacement.

In the past eight years and nine moon cycles we’d been apart, I had worn out five Olivander pillows.

But maybe this would be the last. I wouldn’t need another pillow once I went home; I’d have the real live man there. A thrill of excitement tore through me.

Curled up against my faux mate, I closed my eyes and sighed in contentment.

Time passed, and drowsiness filled my bones. It felt as if I’d just slipped into unconsciousness, however, when a rough hand, smelling like candle wax and ink, slammed over my mouth, startling me awake again.