Chapter 15: Her House

I did not sleep in my old room.

It still had the narrow bed and the faded quilt.

It had the closet where I'd hidden my feed store paychecks, until I learned Dad read the stubs.

I walked past it, and I walked past Dad's room too.

At the end of the hall there was a door I had never been allowed to open.

It was locked, and the old key hung in the kitchen drawer with a paper tag in Grandmother's handwriting.

"The Alpha's room," the tag said.

I opened it at one in the morning with Ash behind me.

It smelled of cedar and cold air.

The bed was huge and made up with white linen.

One whole wall was windows, with the pines black against a sky full of stars.

"Nobody's slept here in nine years," I said.

"Somebody has now." Ash shut the door behind us and turned the lock.

He stood there with his back against the wood.

He was still in his torn flannel, with the bandage showing through at his side.

He looked at me.

"You don't have to do anything tonight," he said. "You've buried half your life in one day."

"I don't want to bury anything."

I crossed the floor and put both hands on his chest.

"I want one thing that's mine. In my house. On my terms."

"Then take it," he said.

His voice went rough on the last word.

I kissed him.

I did it hard, with my fingers in his hair.

He made a sound low in his chest and kissed me back.

I got his shirt open, button by button, and then I tore the last three.

He laughed against my mouth.

"That was a good shirt."

"Buy another."

I pushed it off his shoulders, careful of the bandage.

I ran my mouth down his throat and over the scar on his collarbone.

He shuddered.

"Sigrid."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Daughter They Didn't Want from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.