Chapter 17: What Garrick Always Knew

"No," I said.

Garrick sighed, the way he used to sigh when I refused a second helping of pudding.

"You haven't heard the offer," he said.

"I heard it. Be your mate, or be drugged."

"Be my mate and be comfortable. Mine, Morwen, the way you've always been."

He came up the porch steps, unhurried.

"The valley needs a hand on it. Yours, with mine over it. You sign the mine to the trust, and you keep your pretty gowns."

"You've been digging my father's ridge for seven years."

"Father has. I was at school."

"You carried it up," I said slowly. "The first tin. The week I came."

His eyes held mine, and he did not look away.

"Yes," Garrick said. "I always knew."

The wind moved in the empty doorway behind me.

"You were eighteen and wrecked," he said. "Father said it was kinder."

"Your wolf would only have hurt you. Then you got used to it, and so did I."

"You let Brenna lie to every man who asked for me."

"I told her to." He smiled. "Do you think she thought of it herself?"

"And the part about keeping me on the side?"

"I meant that, too." He opened his hand to the men. "Bring her."

Two of them started up the steps.

I took one step back into the hall.

The wolf was already up and pacing under my ribs, and I had not even called her.

I let go of the door.

The change took me hard and clean.

My coat tore off my back as I dropped onto four feet in the doorway.

The two men stopped on the steps.

One of them said, "Gods, it's real."

I hit the first one in the chest and he went off the porch rail into the snow.

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