Chapter 16: Clara's Window

Clara's POV

I woke at four in the morning because my wolf was kicking.

It was a small, ridiculous kick, and I lay very still so it would do it again.

It did.

Mom was asleep in the armchair with her hand still wrapped around mine.

Brynn was asleep in the other bed, flat on her back with her mouth open and her bare hand hanging off the edge of the mattress.

She did snore, a little.

I looked at her for a long time.

For years I had looked at the back of her head across the supper table and thought she was angry with me.

She never ate the cake.

Every birthday I carried a piece up to our room in a napkin.

Every year she said, "I'm not hungry," and let it dry out on the windowsill.

I thought she was refusing me.

I thought it was her polite way of hating the sick sister.

She was hungry, of course.

She had been told her whole life that she was the strong one, and nobody in our family had ever offered her anything but a napkin.

I had never worked that out.

I'd been the one in the bed, so I took the blanket.

"Mom," I whispered.

Her eyes opened at once.

She had slept like that for nine nights, ready to wake.

"What is it?"

"Walk me downstairs."

"Are you in pain?"

"No. I want to ask the cook for something. I need you to hold on to me the whole way."

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