The Lycans Voted Her Queen novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Slow in the Truck

He moved the truck a hundred yards down the road, under the firs, where the yellow window was still in the windshield.

Then he got out, opened the canopy on the bed, and spread the quilts he kept for call nights.

He did it without a word.

I watched his hands.

They were not steady.

"Come here," I said.

I climbed up into the truck bed and pulled him in after me.

The canopy was low, and he had to crawl.

Through the little back window I could still see the lit square on the second floor.

If the curtain moved, I would see it.

I pulled the tailgate shut and sat him against the wheel well.

"I can't," he said. "Not with her in there."

"I'm not asking you to do anything."

"Moira."

"I'm a midwife. I know how to wait with my hands on something."

I knelt in front of him and put my palm on the middle of his chest, over the green wool.

His heart was going like a hammer.

"There," I said. "That's where my hands are going to be."

He closed his eyes.

"Breathe with me."

He tried.

I breathed slowly, in and out, and I felt his ribs follow mine, a little late.

His heart slowed under my hand, a beat at a time.

"That's it."

"It was the window," he said, with his eyes shut. "She had a lamp in the window. It was yellow like that.

"They kept turning it down.

"Every time somebody went in or out, the light went lower.

"I thought that was what it looked like when someone was dying."

"Garrick."

"I stood in the yard and watched the lamp go down."

I took his face in both hands.

"Look at me."

He did.

His eyes were wet, green and gold.

"This one isn't turning down," I said. "I'm watching it. If it does, I'll go. Until it does, I'm here, and so are you.

"Let me hold you."

He made a sound that was not a word.

I kissed him.

It was slow and soft, with no hurry in it at all.

He kissed me back, and I tilted my head and opened his mouth and took more.

His hands came up and held the sides of my ribs.

I felt the shaking go out of them.

I pulled his shirt up over his head and laid my palm flat on his bare chest again.

Then I undid my own flannel, one button at a time, and I let it slide off my shoulders into the quilts.

He looked at the bruise on my shoulder.

He touched it with two fingers, and his breath caught.

"I like it," I said.

"I know."

"I like looking at it."

"You can't see it."

"I can feel it. Every time I move."

His eyes darkened.

I unfastened my jeans, wriggled out of them in the cramped dark, and pulled the quilt over my back.

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