This Time, I Won't Beg for His Mark novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Photograph

Joss's study was a cramped room at the back of the house, full of ledgers, boots, and the smell of wet dog.

I sat on the edge of his desk in a borrowed flannel shirt and a pair of sweatpants rolled four times at the ankle.

He took a frame down from the wall behind the door, dusted the glass with his sleeve, and put it in my hands.

"My father kept this where visitors wouldn't see it," he said. "He told me it was a debt."

The photograph was old, the colours gone yellow.

Two people stood in front of a granite slab on a hillside, in the sun.

The man was tall and broad and laughing, with a girl of about four sitting on his shoulders.

The woman beside him had chestnut hair and grey-green eyes.

Behind them, on a post, hung a banner with a white wolf on it.

I could not breathe.

I knew the woman's face.

I had looked at it every morning in my own mirror, and I had not known whose it was.

"Ansel and Marian Wray," Joss said. "The founding Alphas of Cold Spur. They held the pack for thirty years. My father was Ansel's friend, and he was at their funeral."

"Their funeral."

"Sixteen years ago. A rogue attack, the story goes." His voice was careful. "They had a daughter. She was ten. My father always said she died with them."

I touched the little girl on the man's shoulders.

I could feel his hands round my ankles.

I could hear him say, hold on, Val, hold on, don't let go.

"Hold on," I whispered.

"Valerie."

"I remember it." My own voice sounded far off. "There was a night. A lot of people shouting. My father put me down in a closet and told me to stay."

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