Chapter 13: What Torin Said on the Bridge

Kurt stopped the truck at the near end of the bridge and cut the engine.

"I'll stay here," he said.

"You can come."

"You asked me not to speak for you. I'd rather not get tempted."

I got out alone.

The sun wasn't up yet, and the river below the bridge was black and loud with snowmelt.

Torin knelt in the middle of the road with two border wardens standing well back, looking at the water.

His trousers had worn through at the knees.

His palms were torn open from the grit, and the blood had dried dark on the asphalt under them.

I stopped six feet away, with the tin of salve knocking against my hip in my coat pocket.

"Get up," I said.

I didn't use the voice.

"No." His own voice was ruined. "I'm not asking for anything, Fern. I only need you to hear it."

"Then say it."

He lifted his head.

He hadn't slept, and the stubble on his jaw had gone grey at the edges.

"You told me you were pregnant," he said. "In front of my whole pack. And I called you a liar because Margo was crying."

"Yes."

"I put you on the Stone. I went to bed. I ate breakfast."

"Yes."

"I stepped over your blood," he said, and his voice broke on it. "I'm not saying it so you'll come back."

"Good."

"I'm saying it because it happened. Nobody else is ever going to say it to your face."

I stood there and waited to feel something.

What I felt was tired, down in my bones.

"Why did her word weigh more with you than mine?" I asked.

He stared at me.

"For five years I told you what was true. She told you one story, and you put me on a rock."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Alpha Killed Our Pup for His Pregnant Mistress from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.