The direction of this encounter felt entirely anti-climatic, a part of her naively hoping for something else—something more intense, even romantic, between her and Ronan.
Rem massaged his wounds while she disappointingly floated in her thoughts, like she was a servant tending to the Alpha. When she was finished, she bandaged it up and tied another knot. As soon as Rem leaned her rear back onto her feet to stand, Ronan interrupted whatever Jola was saying.
Jola spoke in English. "Oh, well, he is dismissing me… Do you need anything, Rem? Anything at all?"
"Do I go with you?" Rem asked, surprised that Ronan cut her off so suddenly. Maybe he wanted them to both leave, now that his wounds were treated.
"He didn't say anything, so I assume you stay. I am sure he will dismiss you if he wants to," she said, pausing as Ronan spoke once more. “Actually, he wants me to fetch your translator, so you remain.”
Jola left the room, and the seconds that lasted felt eternal.
Nia lowered her head when she entered and spoke gently to Ronan. “He wants to ask a few questions.”
“Okay,” Rem quietly said.
Nia waited, partially in the shadows, for the translation before nodding. “He wants to know why you came in here.”
Rem hesitated as she looked at her hands, and Nia added, “I think he means, do you know what you’re doing? Like he wants to make sure you came here knowing what offering this means.”
“I am aware of it,” Rem quickly replied and met his impervious gaze.
“He asks what has changed.”
“Tell him I am sorry for all the deceit, and that… That my interest in him was never something I had to fake. Or at least, I found myself… More interested out of my own accord,” she said, nearly mumbling by the time she was done speaking.
Ronan hardly blinked as he watched her speak, the smallest twitch of his eyes the only expression he gave. “He says he knows. He can smell that… He wants to verify that you know what you are offering.”
Rem straightened her back and connected her gaze with him. It made perfect sense that he’d want to verify that, after everything. “Yes. You’ve done more for me than you had to, and it means everything to me” —she even spoke in ways she never would have considered over a month ago—“I don’t have any shame in my desires for you.”
Nia lightly gasped, and with approval said, “You go for it, Rem, he’ll like that…” then began to translate.
Ronan bore his unreadable eyes into Rem before gently motioning with his hand towards the door. “Skildu okkur eftir, Nia,” he instructed.
Nia bowed her head. “I am leaving you two. He didn’t ask for you to leave, so you stay. I don’t have any advice from here, and don’t want my tone to sound too excited out of respect for him but, well, you will have to tell me about this later.”
“Okay,” Rem replied, a laugh bubbling in her chest.
The humor faded the instant that Nia left the room, however.
Ronan rose from his chair to face the fireplace, laying another log inside. Rem rolled back onto her feet as she stood, looking over him with a quickened heartbeat, her hormones rushing through, unfiltered. The smell of wood and smoke filled her lungs, mixing with his musk like an imprint on her brain.
"Nervous?" he asked in his tongue, his voice rumbling like the fire in the hearth.
"Nervous?" she echoed in Icelandic.
"I can smell it."
She translated that at least five times in her head until she realized what he said. Nia had smelled nerves in her before, too.
So, Rem lied. There was no way to explain that she was erratically anxious while also ostensibly infatuated. She'd embarrass herself to no end if she tried to translate that.
"Moon," she said. "The change. Nervous for change."
She hoped that that would work, despite it not really being true.
He raised a brow, his eyes alert as he looked at her. "Not true."
She opened her mouth to immediately protest, a hint of a smile forcing its way onto her face.
