Chapter 12: Wanting Isn't Forgiving

Hester's cabin had two rooms, a loft and one good stove.

Dunne carried Torin in at midnight, laid him on the cot in the back room and left without a word.

I stayed in the front room, in the rocking chair, with my mother's bowl in my lap and my wolf humming against my ribs.

Hester went to bed.

She said, "Don't stay up all night staring at the wall," in the tone of a woman who knew I would.

At two in the morning, I stopped staring at the wall.

I put the bowl down and went to the back room and opened the door.

Torin was awake.

He was lying on his back in a borrowed flannel shirt with one arm over his eyes.

"You should be asleep," I said.

"I tried."

"Try harder."

"I can't. I keep hearing it."

"Hearing what?"

"Your voice. On the stone." He lowered his arm. "I reject Torin Stannard as husband and as mate."

I leaned on the doorframe.

He looked terrible.

His face was hollow and his lips were dry, and the black lines had crept above his collar.

But his eyes were clear.

"Why did you stand up in the hall?" I said.

"You know why."

"Say it."

"Because you were the one who told me the truth," he said. "I owed you the same."

"You'd have died."

"I still might."

"Not for me. Don't put that on me."

"I'm not." He shifted on the cot.

"I'm saying I'd have died anyway."

"I'd have died as a man who took your life to live."

"I'd rather die as one who didn't."

I shut the door behind me.

Then I crossed the room and stood by the cot.

"This isn't forgiveness," I said.

"I know."

"I'm not saying I'll ever forgive you."

"I know."

"I'm saying I want something, and I want it right now, and you're the only one in this valley who has it."

His eyes widened.

He didn't speak.

I pulled my sweater over my head and dropped it on the floor.

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