Bee Among the Clover (274 page)

R
OMAN hadn’t slept. He’d tried, but it was impossible. Wulfgar had kept
Aron in the bed with him the whole night, and while he was wildly jealous, he couldn’t quite bring himself to resent his former master.
Whether Wulfgar would admit it or not, the thane was going to miss Aron.
Mayhap Wulfgar would miss him as well.
He watched the sky outside the small, narrow window begin to lighten, his heart pounding, his stomach jumping. Today was the day.
Aron was free. He bit his upper lip and curled in on himself, mind whirling.
The last two months had been a study in torture. It hadn’t taken long before Aron had seemed to put aside his anger, though the tension between Roman and the other man was high. No matter what Roman tried,
it didn’t ease. He stayed close to Aron, trying not to be in the way, and had
tried to anticipate Aron’s needs, his desires, whatever Roman thought he
wanted.
Aron still held him every night Wulfgar allowed him on the pallet,
and that gave Roman some hope. If Aron wanted him within his arms,
surely he wouldn’t leave him behind today? The thought terrified him. Roman was paralyzed with the fear that, when Wulfgar removed Aron’s collar and gave him his freedom back, Aron would simply turn and walk
away. That he would tell Wulfgar to keep him because he didn’t want him.
He wanted to beg Aron to take him with him as he had promised, to follow through with what he said to prove himself unlike the rest of them.
But in the back of his mind, the threat Aron had heedlessly thrown at him two months earlier still haunted him.
Roman heard someone stirring on the bed. Either it was Wulfgar trying to pretend that dawn wasn’t coming or Aron trying to hurry it along.
He wasn’t sure which one he was wishing for; both at times. His heart
kept getting in the way of his reason, telling him to trust Aron, and his apprehensions would recede under his determination to make their

relationship work against all odds. Then a little voice would start whispering, calculating all the times he’d been misled by those whom he knew cared for him in their own way.

Roman rose and got dressed, beginning to move around the room to pack as quietly as he could. Wulfgar had refused to allow them to do so earlier, probably because the thane wanted to hold onto the illusion they were going to stay. Roman gathered both of their belongings, not that they owned much. He had to act on the belief that Aron wasn’t going to leave him behind. If he doubted it now that the hour was upon them, he’d lose the self-control he’d worked so hard to master.