Chapter 13: The Boxes

Kendra's text had come in the night before: Mama is keeping me home. I'll bring your boxes at nine.

She was at the gate at nine exactly, in a clean white sweater with fresh makeup on.

A hatchback full of cardboard sat behind her with the trunk tied shut.

Hazel had gone back to her cottage the evening of the writ, with two of Lucan's guards on her porch.

Her beans would not replant themselves, she said, and nobody argued.

"Stay on the gallery," I told Lucan. "If she sees you, she'll say nothing true."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"If she touches you wrong, I come down," he said.

"Then watch her hands."

I went out to the garden with two coffees and held one out.

"I brought the coffee this time," I said.

Kendra laughed, a wet, shaky laugh, and took it.

"Orla. I was so scared for you. Did the healer hurt you? I heard she examined your mark."

"She said it was fine."

"Oh, thank God."

She put the cup on a bench and pulled me into a hug.

It was a tight one.

Her left hand slid up my back and hooked my collar.

She dragged the neck of my sweater down off my shoulder as if she were straightening it.

Cool air touched skin that had never been bare in front of her.

She looked at it for one second.

It was smooth and pink, with no mark on it.

Her smile did not move, but her eyes went wide and flat.

"You've gotten so thin," she said, and tugged the sweater back up. "Eat something, honey."

I did not move.

I had promised myself I would smile, so I smiled.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Mate Bet Me Away, So the Lycan King Collected from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.