Unwanted Shewolf novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Waiting

Rafe's POV

I had been standing at the border stones for four hours when she came out of the trees.

Twice I had gone down the road toward Marrick House, and twice I had turned back at the first lamp.

She had told me to wait, and a Warden who can't wait is no use to anybody.

The bond had been dragging at my ribs the whole night.

When she ran out of the dark in her silver wolf's shape and shifted at my feet, it went still at last.

She stood there in a borrowed dress with her face wet.

"Take me home," she said.

I knew which home she meant, and I could not speak.

I took my coat off and put it around her, and I carried her up the Moon Path in my arms.

She did not argue.

Her head lay against my shoulder, and her hand was fisted in my shirt.

By the time I kicked the door of the house shut behind us, the fire had burned down to coals.

Mabel's bedroom door was closed, and her lamp was out.

I set Hazel down on her feet in the dark kitchen.

"Rafe," she said.

"Yes."

"I want to ask you for something."

"Then ask."

She took off my coat and let it fall.

Her hands were shaking, but they did not stop.

She pulled the borrowed dress over her head and stood in front of me in the last red light from the coals.

I forgot how to breathe.

"I'm asking," she said. "You said you wouldn't touch me until I asked. I'm asking you to touch me. All of me. I don't want to be somebody's duty tonight, and I don't want to be a girl in a locked room. I want to be a woman you put your hands on because she told you to."

"Hazel."

"Say yes."

"Yes," I said, and my voice broke on it.

I crossed the floor and took her face in both hands.

The kiss was nothing like the one at the spring.

That one had been a fight.

This one was slow and deep, and I felt her sink into it and stop being afraid.

She pulled at my shirt.

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