Chapter 5: Dawn Deck

The sunrise run to the mainland left at six, and on Thursday the swell off the Hook came in hard from the northeast.

I stood at the stern rail checking lashings with my hood up and the spray stinging my face.

Nobody else was on that end of the deck.

Doran came aft along the car lane with his hands in his coat pockets.

I did not turn around.

I knew his step on steel, and I knew the smell of him, and I could not let my body say what it wanted to say.

"Etheridge," he said.

"Alpha."

He stopped beside me at the rail and did not touch it.

We both watched the wake go out white behind the boat.

"You work the sunrise run on your own rate," he said. "Nobody told you to."

"Nobody told me not to."

"No."

The deck heaved, and I braced my boots without thinking.

He did not move, and his body was a hard warm line at my left shoulder.

I turned my head and looked at him straight, in daylight, for the first time since the loft.

There were gray hollows under his eyes and a fresh split at the corner of his mouth.

He looked like a man who had not been to bed in a week.

I thought of the iron bed and the big hands waiting on my hips.

The thought went through me so fast that I looked back at the sea.

"I'll ask you one thing," I said.

"Ask."

"You let her laugh."

He said nothing.

"You sat there with your cousin whispering in your ear, and the woman in the green coat laughing, and you did not turn your head."

I kept my voice even and low.

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