The End of Us novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Stroud Land

Keith takes Isla to a cabin across the river, where his touch is the only thing that eases the bond pain, and she sets her rules. At dawn the whole Dunstan guard is at the bridge.

The truck smelled of cedar and wet dog.

I rode with my forehead against the cold window and my arms wrapped around my stomach.

Keith drove without speaking.

Every time we passed a mile marker, the pull behind my ribs dragged harder, and I made a sound I was ashamed of.

"It's the bond," he said. "You've stretched it a long way tonight."

"I know what it is."

"Then you know it eases when the distance stops growing."

"I'm not going back."

"I didn't ask you to," Keith said.

He turned off the county road onto a gravel track, and then crossed a narrow iron bridge.

The river ran black underneath us.

On the far side, the trees closed in, and a single porch light burned at the end of the track.

It was a log cabin with a stone chimney and a woodpile stacked to the eaves.

"This is Stroud land," Keith said. "You're a guest here. Nobody on this side of the water answers to the Dunstan pack."

He came around and opened my door.

I got down on my own, and my knees gave out at once.

His hand closed around my elbow.

The skin of his palm was hot, and the pain behind my ribs dropped away so fast I gasped.

We both froze.

"That's not supposed to happen," I said.

"No."

He let go.

The pain came back at full strength, and I grabbed the side of the truck.

"Give me your hand," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I'd rather you hated me for an hour than screamed for a night."

I gave him my hand.

He held it between both of his, and he did not look at my face while he did it.

He looked at the porch light.

The ache in my chest slowly eased into something I could breathe around.

His thumb lay across the inside of my wrist, right where Quinton's cord had been, and I could feel my pulse beating against it.

I took my hand back.

"I need rules," I said.

"Go on."

"I sleep in a room with a door that locks. I come and go when I want. And you don't touch me unless the bond is making me sick."

"Agreed." He nodded once. "I'll add one. You don't thank me for anything, because I owe your father more than a roof."

"You keep saying that. What did he do?"

"He saw a fourteen-year-old kid drowning in March and went in after him, in his coat."

Keith pushed the cabin door open.

"I've been waiting seventeen years to pay him back," he said. "Tonight is the first night anyone gave me the chance."

The cabin held two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a fire that someone had already lit.

On the table lay a folded quilt and a pair of wool socks.

He had planned this.

"You knew I'd leave tonight," I said.

"I knew the Dunstan Hall had been sitting on a bad night for a long time. I didn't know which night it would be."

"You've been watching us."

"I've been watching you," he said.

I stared at him.

He didn't look away, and he didn't explain.

The headlights of a second car swept across the cabin window, and I was on my feet before I knew it.

Keith stepped between me and the door.

It was Ginny.

She came up the porch steps in her scrubs and a coat, with my overnight bag over one shoulder and her car keys still in her fist.

"I went through your closet at the Hall before the elders locked it," she said, and dropped the bag at my feet. "I got your boots, your mother's necklace, and your passport. I did not get a toothbrush. I'm sorry."

I put my arms around her.

She was shaking.

"Maud had every elder in that wing thank her for the heir," Ginny said into my hair. "Then she told the head nurse to move your name off the Luna's door. They had the plate off by one o'clock."

"I don't want that door."

"I know. I wanted to kick it."

She pulled back and looked at Keith.

"Who's the giant?"

"The Alpha of the Stroud pack," I said. "He says he owes my father."

"He owes your father?" Ginny looked him up and down. "Okay. Then he can make the tea."

Keith, to my astonishment, went to the kettle.

Ginny took the second bedroom without asking, and I took the one with the lock.

I lay down in my coat on top of the quilt.

The bond tugged at me through the wall every time I breathed, but it was a tugging I could live with.

I slept in pieces.

At first light, a sound woke me from the direction of the river, a low rumble of engines.

I went to the window.

Four Dunstan trucks were parked at the far end of the iron bridge, and the headlights were still on.

Quinton stood in front of them with his mother at his side.

They were not alone.

Behind them, spread out along the road in the grey light, stood the entire Dunstan guard.

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