I Died in His Arms, Now I'll Marry Another novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Terms

Bronwyn faces her furious father and sets one year of rules with Torin; his sister Hester arrives, and Torin says why he said yes.

My father waited until the door of the side room shut before he shouted.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"No, Father."

"Ronan Harcourt looked at you all night! The Redmere river trade was in your hand, and you gave it to a stranger from the north!"

He was a big man, grey in the beard, and when he was angry the whole room felt smaller.

I let him finish.

"Redmere is marrying Highgate by spring," I said. "Linnet's wedding gives Highgate the river and the border forts. Where does that leave Dunmere?"

He stopped.

"Between them," I said. "With our grain road in the middle."

My father looked at me for a long moment.

He had not expected me to know that. Last time, I hadn't.

"Coldwater is starving," I said. "They need the road, and they'll pay for it. An Alpha who owes us his winter is a better ally than a pack that already has two other friends."

"You didn't think of that standing in the hall."

"I thought of it on the way across it."

The man in question sat by the window with his boots stretched out toward the fire, saying nothing.

Torin Vaughn had not looked surprised once.

He looked at my father now.

"Alpha Ferrow. I'll be plain. My pack has eleven weeks of flour. I came to ask for a road and was prepared to pay whatever you named."

"And now?"

"Now I'll take your daughter, and pay with my name instead."

My father turned on me again.

"You'll marry him in three days. At Dunmere, on the full moon, with the whole pack watching."

"Yes."

"If you cry about it later, don't come to me."

He walked out.

The door banged behind him.

Torin took his boots off the hearth.

"Does he always shout like that?"

"Only when he's right about one part of it."

"Which part?"

"That I'll regret it."

He almost smiled.

It was a small thing and it came and went, but it changed his face.

"I'd like to set terms," he said. "You may have your own."

"One year," I said.

"One year."

"After that, either of us can walk. The grain road stays open either way, and the pack keeps its winter."

"Agreed."

"Separate rooms."

He lifted an eyebrow, the one with the scar through it. "In my house, my wife has the warm room."

"Then I'll take the warm room, and you'll take the other."

"Fine."

"No touching in private. We perform in front of packs, and nowhere else."

That one took him a second.

"Agreed," he said. "And nobody asks about the other's past."

I tried to keep my face still.

"Why would I?"

"Because you looked at my belt buckle for four full minutes."

I had not known he could see me do that.

"It's an ugly buckle."

"It's my father's."

"Then I'm sorry for it."

The door opened without a knock, and a woman walked in with snow on her shoulders and a leather bag across her chest.

She was freckled and short-haired, with the thick forearms of someone who lifted sheep for a living, and she paid no attention to the mood of the room.

"There you are," she said to Torin. "I waited at the gate for an hour. Someone told me you'd proposed to a stranger."

"She proposed to me."

"Oh, that's better."

She turned to me and held out a rough hand.

"Hester Vaughn. His sister. The healer, which is how you'll know me: I'm the one who tells him what he can't lift."

"Bronwyn Ferrow."

"I know. The whole inn knows." She looked me over, quickly and kindly. "You've got your father's jaw. Good. Coldwater likes people who don't back down."

"I'm not sure I'm what Coldwater needs."

"We need flour," Hester said. "Anything past that is a bonus."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

It was the first time I had laughed since I woke up.

Torin stood and went to the door, where he took his coat from the peg.

"We ride for Dunmere at first light. Hester will see you have a horse."

"I have a horse."

"Then she'll see it's not the one that bites."

He stopped with his hand on the latch.

He did not turn around when he spoke.

"One more term, Bronwyn."

"Go on."

"I don't know why you chose me tonight. I don't need to know."

He opened the door and the cold came in.

"But if you ever decide to put a knife in me, do it to my face."

Then he was gone.

Hester stared at the shut door.

"Well," she said slowly. "He's never said anything like that to a woman before."

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