The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Silver

Alder lay on his side with his knees drawn up and a wet, rattling breath in his chest.

I dropped beside him on the stone.

His lips were blue.

"Hattie!"

"I'm coming." She came across the floor with her wrists raw and her braid down her back, shoving the rope off her hands.

She knelt, put her palm flat on his ribs, and shut her eyes.

When she opened them, she looked at me and said nothing at all for a moment.

"His wolf's dying," she said. "The rejection took half of it, and the one he just spoke took the rest. There's a way to stop it."

"What?"

"You."

I stared at her.

"If you took the bond back," Hattie said, "even for a breath, the thread would hold. He'd live."

"And I'd be tied to him."

"For the rest of your life."

Alder's hand closed on my wrist.

It was cold and damp and weak.

"Don't," he said.

"Alder."

"Don't do it, Cal. I mean it." His eyes were bright with pain. "I broke it. I said it out loud in front of them. It's the only thing in my whole life I've done that cost me anything. Let it cost."

I looked at him.

I saw the boy who had wanted my cookie when we were nine, and the man who had stood on the Altar and smiled at the crowd.

I saw the one who had lain on the cave floor and refused to say the lie.

I could have saved him by saying yes.

I knew exactly how it would feel, and I knew it would be for always.

"I'm not taking it back," I said.

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