Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 38 of 48

Chapter 38: The Girl at the Ford

The south sentry woke us before dawn, pounding on the porch rail.

"Luna. Alpha. There's somebody in the river."

I was down the stairs before I had my boots laced.

Ronan came behind me with his shirt open, buttoning it with his right hand, and he didn't hide the left.

We ran down through the pines in the gray light.

A figure was wading the ford from the Blackwater side.

She walked slowly, with both arms held out from her body for balance, and the water was up to her thighs.

I knew the dark head before I saw the face.

"It's the girl," I said. "The one from the cart."

She reached our bank and went down on her hands and knees in the gravel.

Her lip was split.

One eye had swollen shut, and the back of her shirt was torn open and black with dried blood.

Across her shoulders ran the marks of a belt.

"Luna," she said. "You said I could come."

"I didn't say anything."

"You bled for me. That's the same."

I dropped to my knees and took her face between my hands.

The sentry shrugged out of his coat and put it round her.

Tilly had come down the path in her nightgown with a lantern, and she swore a long, vicious oath.

"Who did this?" Ronan asked.

"The Alpha." She tried to smile, and her lip cracked.

"He says I walked back across the water on my own feet and whispered to the enemy.

He's right. I did."

"Why?" I said. "Why come back?"

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