Chapter 4: The Mill Bridge

Torin spun toward the trees.

"Who's there?"

Nothing answered.

Pine needles crackled somewhere far off, then went quiet.

"Probably a kid," he said.

He didn't believe it either.

"Go home, Torin," I said again, and shut the door on him.

By seven the next morning, the photo was in the pack chat.

I wasn't in the chat anymore.

I didn't need to be.

The housekeeper's daughter showed it to me on her phone at the kitchen door, with a face like she was sorry.

It was taken from the trees.

It showed Torin pressing me against the cabin door frame, his mouth at my face.

You couldn't see my hand on his chest.

You couldn't see me pushing.

Under it, someone had written, "Home one night and she's already at it."

Under that, forty replies.

Some of them had my mother's name in them.

The last one was from Odette.

"Please don't be cruel to her. I forgive her. I just want Saturday to be happy."

Two hundred hearts.

The pack hall served breakfast on the morning before any big gathering.

It always had.

I walked in at eight.

The long room went quiet.

Thirty wolves at the tables.

Women I had babysat for. Men who had taught me to swim.

I took a plate and got in line.

The woman in front of me turned her back.

So did the one after her.

When I sat down at the end of a table, the three people there picked up their plates and moved.

I ate my eggs.

The old Beta's widow, walked the length of the room with a water pitcher.

She stopped at my shoulder.

Then she poured it slowly over my plate.

Water filled the eggs and ran off the table into my lap.

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