Sentenced to Two Wardens, I Served My Whole Term in Their Bed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Loft

The ladder had twelve rungs.

At the top, a square of floor opened into a low room under the rafters, lit by a single candle in a jar.

There was a wide bed with a gray quilt and a window onto the bay.

Anders lay on his back against the pillows with his shirt off.

Mikkel lay beside him with his head on Anders's chest.

Anders was holding Mikkel's left forearm in both hands, and he had his mouth pressed to the half ring of white scars.

He was kissing them, slowly, one at a time.

Neither of them had heard me.

I stood with my chin at the edge of the floor and my hands gripping the top rung.

Anders's right sleeve was gone with the shirt.

Across the inside of his right forearm lay the same half ring, small and white and even.

I looked at his arm.

I looked at Mikkel's.

Two bites, opposite each other.

I understood it, all at once.

"Oh," I said.

They both went still.

Mikkel turned his head.

His face was open and startled and then, very quickly, afraid.

"Linnea," he said.

Anders lowered Mikkel's arm.

He did not let go of it.

"How long?" I asked.

My voice sounded steady and strange.

"Six years," Anders said.

I climbed the last rung and sat on the edge of the loft floor with my feet hanging down the ladder hole.

"You're mates," I said.

"Yes."

"Bonded. With a bite."

"Both of us," Mikkel said. "He bit me. I bit him. That's how it's done."

"And the pack doesn't know."

"The pack can't know," Anders said.

His voice was low and rough, and he was looking at me with an expression I had never seen on his face.

He looked braced for a blow.

"A Warden swears the boundary before any bond," he said. "That's the oath."

His jaw worked under the beard.

"If two Wardens bond, the tribunal splits them. One goes to the south post, and the other stays."

"The rule is old," Anders said. "It was meant for men who'd put each other before the line."

"And you did."

"We did," Mikkel said. "Not at first. Not for two years."

"And then it was done, and neither of us wanted to be the one who walked south."

"So you hid it."

"The north post is the last place anyone looks," Anders said. "They send a supply truck twice a year."

"The tribunal has not climbed that road in a decade. We kept it quiet."

"And then the judge sent me."

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