Chapter 21: Nobody Begs

Joss's POV

I made it forty minutes down the valley road before I admitted I had done it wrong.

The roofer sat beside me with his arms folded, and he had not said a word since the gate.

He lasted until the Ridgeback turn.

"Alpha," he said. "May I say something?"

"No."

"She was crying a little."

"She wasn't."

"She was holding it in her jaw." He looked out at the dark. "Same as you."

I drove the rest of the way in silence.

My cabin was cold.

I lit the stove and sat on the edge of the bed, where the blanket still held a trace of her.

Then I made myself say it plainly.

I had not refused her because of what the pack would say.

I had refused her because I was afraid.

A claim ties one wolf to another, and the one holding it decides.

I had seen what that did to her the first night, on the border road.

I did not trust myself to hold it and keep my hands open.

So I had walked away from her, politely, and called it respect.

I looked at the photograph of my father on the shelf.

He was thirty years younger than he'd been when he died, and squinting.

"A debt," I said to it. "You said it was a debt."

He did not answer.

But I knew what I owed.

I did not owe the Wrays a bodyguard.

I did not owe Valerie a man who stood by and let her decide alone.

I owed her what no one had given her since she was ten years old: the choice, in her own hand.

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