Chapter 8: That's Mine

I walked down the porch steps and across the yard until the gate stood between us.

Bess came after me with the spade on her shoulder.

Up and down Willow Lane, porch lights were coming on. Three neighbors stood in their doorways in their nightclothes, watching the truck.

It was not a pack house. Nobody here would look away for him.

Gideon stood in the beam of his own headlights, breathing hard.

"Maeve." He held out his hand. "Come home. Whatever this is, we'll fix it."

"There's nothing to fix."

"You left in the middle of the night."

"I left at dusk. On a bus. With a ticket I bought four days ago."

He flinched.

"I read it," he said. "The Release. I read all of it. Maeve, I didn't know what I was signing."

"I know you didn't."

I took a folded page from my coat pocket and held it up in the headlights.

It was the Elder's copy, with his bold, careless signature at the bottom.

"This is yours," I said. "I put it between two border treaties. You signed all three without looking up."

"I trusted you."

"You trusted me not to need anything." My voice stayed level. "That's the only thing you've ever trusted me for."

A woman on the nearest porch said, very softly, "Oh, honey."

Gideon looked past me at the lit windows, and the faces, and Bess with her spade.

His jaw tightened.

"This isn't the place."

"You picked the place. You drove here."

"Maeve, I'm your mate."

"You were. You signed that, too."

"Then I'll sign anything else you want!" His voice cracked across the lane. "Tell me what to sign. I'll sign it in front of all of them."

"Don't you dare."

"What?"

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