The Wolf Who Saved Me Makes Other Alphas Submit. I'm Human. novel · Chapter 36 of 48

Chapter 36: The Aunts Are Gone

By Tuesday night Ridge Hall had every light out except the one over the kitchen table.

Ronan and I sat under it with the Moot's knife between us and the back door in front of us.

The four aunts had gone up to bed in their good shawls, because the oldest had said a woman should be taken in her best.

Joanne slept in the guest room, and Anselm slept in his.

The boy of about nine slept in the root cellar beside the young escort, under a quilt, where nobody would think to look.

Abel walked the fence with six men.

It was a quarter to midnight.

"If they come tonight," Ronan said, "you say it."

"Ronan."

"You say stop, and the deputy stops. He's the only man on their side who isn't wearing a collar."

"I won't."

"Mara."

"I won't spend you."

He pushed back his chair.

"It's mine to spend," he said. "It's my blood."

"It's my mouth."

"Then use your mouth!"

He was shouting, quietly, so the house wouldn't wake.

"They're going to take Auntie, and you're going to sit there and watch me bleed in my sleeve and call it kindness?"

"It is kindness."

"It's the opposite. It's the only thing I'm good for."

I stared at him.

"Say that again."

"I'm hollow, Mara. I was hollow for eight years, and now I'm only whole when I'm standing next to you." His voice broke. "If I can't pay for something, what am I for?"

"That is not true."

"Let me pay it."

"No."

We stood there, a table apart, breathing.

I had a speech ready about how much he was worth, and it died in my mouth.

I came around the table instead.

I put my arms around his waist and my face against his chest and held on.

His hands came up slowly and held my head.

"You're not what you pay," I said into his shirt.

"I know."

"You don't."

"I'm trying."

I tilted my face up and kissed him.

It wasn't gentle.

He kissed me back hard, one hand in my hair and the other flat on my back, and I took his shirt in both fists.

We had nothing to say to each other and no words that would hold the weight, and so we did the other thing.

He sat down in the big chair by the stove and pulled me onto his lap, facing the dark window.

"Quiet," I whispered. "The aunts."

"I'll be quiet."

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