Chapter 8: The Floor

Kellan's POV

The second bite was shorter than the first, and neither of us said a word through it.

Afterward she turned her face to the wall and went to sleep, and I lay down on the floor beside the bed with a folded coat for a pillow.

The floorboards were cold through my shirt.

I did not mind.

I listened to her breathe.

It was better than it had been in the cell, slower and with less rattle, but each breath still had a catch at the top.

I lay awake and thought about the last thing she had said to me before she slept.

"You have his face."

She had said it very quietly, with her eyes closed.

I had known it my whole life.

I had been proud of it.

Every morning for twenty-eight years I had shaved around it in the mirror, and I would have to do it again tomorrow.

Around midnight I heard her teeth.

It was a small hard clicking in the dark.

I sat up.

She had drawn herself into a ball under the quilt, and she was shaking so hard the bed frame knocked against the wall.

"Brigid."

She did not answer.

Her lips were moving.

I got up and put the second quilt over her, and the third, and the coat I had been using for a pillow.

The shaking did not stop.

I put my hand over her forehead, and it was cold and wet.

Hester had said the bite would burn the poison out and that the burn would leave her freezing.

She had said, if it gets bad, the body would need another body beside it to stay warm.

I had told myself I would not need to hear that part.

I stood beside the bed with my hands at my sides.

Her eyes opened.

They were grey and glassy, and for a moment she did not know me.

Then she did.

"Cold," she said.

"I know. I'll get Hester."

"She went home to her cottage." Her fingers caught my sleeve with a strength I had not known she had. "Get up here."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid My Sister's Killer, So the Alpha Poured Truth Down My Throat from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.