Chapter 8: Behind the Racks

I walked out of the hall with my cheek burning and six hundred wolves staring at my back.

Nobody stopped me.

At the gate, in the dark under the black pines, a tall man stood with his arms folded and his breath smoking.

I did not slow down.

I walked straight into him and put my face against his chest.

His arms closed around me hard enough to lift my boots off the ground.

"You waved," he said into my hair.

"You told Bede to ask for a second one."

"I'm greedy."

"Take me somewhere," I said. "Somewhere with no walls and nobody's father."

He carried me up the old logging trail to a hunter's cabin on the first shoulder of Bell Ridge.

It had a woodstove, a pile of furs, and a cracked window that looked down on the whole silver valley.

He lit the stove with one match, and then he turned and looked at me in the red glow.

"Your face," he said, and touched my cheek with two fingers.

"It's nothing."

"I'll remember it."

"Don't."

"All right." His thumb moved to my mouth. "Then I'll remember this instead."

He kissed me slowly.

It was nothing like the angry kiss in my room.

It was patient and deep.

My hands went to his shirt, and he let me undress him.

The neat line of my stitches ran over his ribs.

"You're healing," I said.

"I had a good doctor."

I pressed my lips to the line, and his stomach jumped.

He undressed me just as slowly, the smock, the plain bra, the worn jeans.

He looked at each new inch of skin.

"You're beautiful," he said. "I'm going to tell you every day."

He laid me down on the furs and kissed his way down my body.

Collarbone, breast, the soft curve under my ribs.

When his mouth closed over my nipple, I arched, and the bond poured heat down my spine.

"Torquil."

"Let me."

His tongue went lower, over my belly, and he pushed my thighs apart with his big warm hands.

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