The Luna He Failed to Protect novel · Chapter 30 of 32

Chapter 30: Her Terms

I didn't say yes right away.

I'd learned that from him, in the yard by the fire, the night I asked if he'd fight me.

The first honest thing is sometimes the slow one.

"Get up," I said.

He didn't.

"Not yet," he said. "Not till you answer."

The yard was so quiet I could hear the flag on the stone house snapping.

Edda was standing behind me.

I could feel her not saying anything, which for Edda takes real effort.

"Then listen," I said. "Because I've got terms."

"Tell me."

"I'm the Luna because I brought a true charge. Not because I'm yours. If I'm your mate, I still sit against you. If you're wrong, I'll say so in the round hall in front of everybody."

"I'd want you to."

"I keep my name. Vardy. Not Ravelston, ever again."

"Keep it."

"I keep my house. The gate's mine. You come through it because I open it."

He nodded.

"And you never once come up behind me without saying my name first."

His face changed.

"Never," he said.

I looked down at him on his knees in the ash.

The ash was on his trousers and his hands and in his hair.

The same ash he'd dug seven graves out of in one day.

"And the paper," I said.

He went still.

"I said in the rain I hadn't forgiven it."

"I know."

"I forgive it," I said. "You held that ridge today and didn't come down when you saw me go under."

My voice did something I didn't let it finish.

"I forgive the paper, Cale. Get up."

He got up.

He didn't reach for me.

He waited.

"Yes," I said. "That's the answer. Yes."

Then I put my arms around his neck in the middle of the Ash Line garrison yard and kissed him in front of thirty Greyhollow wolves and every one of bunkhouse one.

He kissed me back with ash on his mouth.

His hands came up and stopped an inch from my waist.

"You can," I said against his lips.

He put them on me.

They were shaking.

Somebody at the back started clapping.

It was the bald man with the burned forearm, the key still in his fist.

Then everybody was.

The youngest was crying.

The cook said, "Motion carries," which made no sense, and everybody laughed anyway.

We left the squad at the garrison for two nights to help hold the wall until the volunteers came down.

Edda pushed me into the truck herself.

"Go home, Luna," she said. "We'll be right behind you. Don't wait up."

Cale drove the first five hours.

I drove the second five.

He fell asleep against the window somewhere past the river farms, with his hand on my knee.

He'd asked first.

I'd said yes.

We came up the valley after dark.

The moon was half now, over the pines.

I didn't take the river road toward the Vardy house.

I turned off at the mill.

He woke up when the engine stopped.

He looked out at the dark mill, the new roof, the wheel turning slow in the river with the stones disengaged.

"Sorrel?"

"I wrote in my letter that I'd take the room over the mill," I said. "If you wanted me gone. So I'd never have to say it again."

He didn't say anything.

"I never got to live in it," I said. "I want to start tonight. With you."

He got out of the truck.

He came around and opened my door.

I took his hand and we went up the outside stairs to the room over the mill.

There were two windows.

One looked downriver.

One looked up.

The lumber father had built a bed for it the week it was finished, and nobody had ever slept in it.

There was flour dust on everything, fine as frost.

I stood in the middle of the floor in the moonlight from both windows.

"Last time I led," I said.

"Yes."

"I want you to, this time."

He looked at me very carefully.

"You're sure."

"I'm sure. Ask me anything you want. I'll tell you yes or I'll tell you no."

"And if it's no?"

"Then you stop. You've always stopped."

He came across the room.

He stopped in front of me.

"Sorrel," he said. "Can I take this off you?"

He meant the garrison coat.

"Yes," I said.

He took the coat off slow.

Buttons, one at a time.

His eyes never left mine.

It slid down my arms and he caught it before it hit the floor.

Folded it once, laid it over the back of a chair that wasn't there in the dark, and I laughed because the chair was a crate of millstones.

"Careful," I said. "That's my best coat."

← Chapter 29 · All chapters · Chapter 31 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend