Chapter 30: Ask Me Properly

I crawled up the gravel on my hands and knees, and nobody touched me.

That was the rule I had set, and every wolf on the bank kept it.

Torin was at the top of the slope.

He had put the babies into the housekeeper's arms, one and then the other.

He had stepped back from them with his hands open at his sides.

He stood there shaking while I climbed.

I reached his boots and stopped.

"Now," I said, through chattering teeth. "Now you can."

He lifted me.

He carried me across the bridge in the moonlight.

The Ironwood wolves parted in front of him, and none of them said a word.

His house was warm.

He had left the fire built up in the big room.

He laid me on the rug in front of it and knelt over me.

His hands went to my wet shirt, and they shook so badly he could not work the buttons.

"Let me," I said.

"I thought you were dead."

"I know."

"I felt you go under. I held my daughter and I couldn't breathe."

"You let go."

"I let go." His voice broke. "It was the worst thing I've ever done."

"It was the best."

I took his face in both hands.

"Ask me properly," I said.

He went still.

"You said you'd ask when you could answer. I'm telling you that you can."

He swallowed.

"Morven Moncrief. I've wanted you since the bridge, and I've been afraid of it since the bridge."

"Go on."

"Tonight I opened my hands. Let me claim you."

"Say the rest."

"And if you tell me to go, I'll stand in the road and not follow."

"Yes," I said.

His breath left him in a ragged sound.

"But I claim you back," I said. "Same bite, same place. Not Alpha and Luna. Two."

"Yes."

"And you don't hold."

"I'll try every day."

"That's all I ask."

I pulled the wet shirt over my head myself.

I was shaking with cold and with something else.

The firelight lay on my skin, and I felt it as if it were his hand.

He looked at the whole length of me, and his mouth fell open a little.

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