Chapter 18: Cost

I woke in the dark with a hole in me.

It was not pain. I had braced for pain.

It was an absence where something warm had lived for three years, and my whole body kept reaching for it.

My wolf lay curled in the back of my head, silent.

"Easy," Cade said.

He was in a chair pulled up beside the bed, still in his dusty boots, with his elbows on his knees.

"How long?" My voice was a croak.

"Six hours. You went down in the circle and I carried you out."

"The book."

"Your mother has it. She won't let anyone near it."

I lifted my left arm.

The cuff was gone. Someone had taken it off.

The inside of my wrist was smooth, pale skin. There was no silver at all.

I turned it over twice, under the lamp.

Cade watched me do it.

"It'll scar," he said gently. "The healers say a refused bond leaves a line, not a mark. Not for a year."

"My wolf won't answer."

"She will. She's tired. She just lost her mate."

"She never had him."

"She had him for three years, Lara. She knew it from the first night."

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

The tears came without sound, and Cade didn't say anything.

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