Chapter 6: What He Felt

Morven's POV

"Stop right there," I said again, and Aldric stopped.

He stood in the river road with his hands open and his shirt open at the collar.

He had not shaved. His eyes were swollen.

Somewhere in the pines behind me a branch moved, and I knew it was Torin keeping his promise.

"You wrote that you had something to tell me," I said. "Tell me from there."

"I felt you," Aldric said.

I did not move.

"Last night, when I stopped drinking the tea. The bond opened. I felt all of it, Morven. The east wing. The nights. Rowan."

"You felt it last night," I said. "I felt it for seven years."

He took the hit and did not look away.

"I know."

"Do you? Say what you know."

He swallowed. "That you were afraid every time. That I never asked."

"Say the night Rowan was born."

His face changed.

"I was on the floor of the east wing," I said. "The healer had taken him out. I couldn't get up. You came through the door and I put out my hand."

"Morven."

"You stepped over it. You said, 'Don't make this harder.'"

The words sat in the cold air between us.

I had carried them for four years and had never said them out loud.

Aldric made a sound I had never heard from a man.

He went down on both knees in the road.

"I thought you wanted it done," he said. "I thought you wanted me gone. You never said otherwise. You never once said no."

"I said yes every time. I was afraid of what would happen if I said no."

"I know that now."

"You were my mate!" I was shouting. "You were the only person on that whole hill who could have stopped it!"

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