Chapter 9: The Hand

I did not cry until the sun came up.

Ronan was awake beside me, propped on one elbow, watching my face and not saying anything.

I sat up with the sheet held to my chest.

"He cut my thumb at my birthday toast," I said. "He folded the cloth into his pocket and told me to go and have cake."

"Hazel."

"He carried the dessert out himself at every Gathering for five years, so no Blood Moon wolf would ever smell me."

"I know."

"I thought the Goddess had skipped me." My voice cracked. "I stood in that kitchen every year thinking something was wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with you."

"He watched me think it. He watched me wait."

Ronan put his hand on my back, and I let it stay.

It was the first time I had cried in front of anyone since my mother died.

He held me until it stopped, and he did not say one wise thing.

When I was quiet, he took his hand away and sat up beside me.

"I owe you something," he said. "I owe you five years."

"You don't."

"I do. I spent them hating a woman who never wrote a word."

His jaw worked.

"Every time I smelled burnt sugar, I left the room. I told my beta never to say your name."

"You were told I'd rejected you."

"I was told, and I believed it, and I never asked a single question. That's mine, not your father's."

He looked straight at me.

"I'm sorry, Hazel."

It was a plain apology, and nothing was hidden in it.

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