Chapter 8: Letters That Never Came

That night the Lycan keep was quiet.

The King's guards had walked Cade and Odette to the border at noon, and neither of them had spoken to me on the way.

Gwen was asleep in the room next to mine, and Joss slept at the door of the warrior's sickbed.

I could not sleep at all.

I went down to the stone terrace behind the keep, and Soren was already there.

He had a wooden box on the parapet beside him and a bandage over his left shoulder.

"You're hurt," I said.

"A scratch from his knife."

"Silver doesn't scratch a wolf. It burns."

"I've had worse."

"Sit down."

He sat on the low wall, and I unwound the bandage myself.

The wound underneath was angry and black at the edges.

"My terms," he said quietly. "I'm not allowed to touch you."

"I'm the one touching you."

"Then I'm not complaining."

I laid my palm flat over the burn.

The silver heat came up through my arm, and the black edges drew in and faded.

His breath went out of him in a low, rough sound.

He was staring at the stone, and his hands were gripping the wall so tightly that the knuckles were bloodless.

"It hurts?" I asked.

"No," he said, too fast.

I let my hand rest there a moment longer than I needed to.

His skin was hot under my fingers, and his heart was going hard.

Probably, I told myself, it was only the healing.

I took my hand away.

"What's in the box?" I asked.

Soren was quiet for a while.

"Open it."

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