Chapter 23: Mine, Both Ways

Cora's POV

I shifted back in the doorway of his room, naked and cold and shaking, and I did not care.

Bram stood in front of me with his shirt half buttoned and his mouth open.

"You walked away," I said.

"Cora."

"I was about to speak. Ten weeks I waited for you to ask me one question, and you got up in front of two packs and answered it for me."

"I wanted you to be free."

"I was free the day I rejected Garrick," I said. "I was free when I took Ashfall back. I came here because I wanted to."

He pulled his shirt off in one motion and put it around my shoulders.

His hands stayed there, warm on my arms.

"Say it plainly," he said, very low. "I'm not clever tonight."

"I'm not leaving."

"Cora."

"I'm your Luna. Not on paper."

My voice shook.

"I want your mark, and I want the bond, and I want it two ways, with nothing hidden in a drawer."

"Cora."

"I want to know what you feel before you've decided whether to tell me."

He made a sound I had never heard from him, rough and broken, and then his mouth was on mine.

It wasn't the Stone kiss, or the lodge kiss.

It was slow, and sure, and it asked for nothing except everything.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back, and his hand slid into my hair.

"Rule three," he murmured, against my lips. "No touching."

"There are no packs here."

"You said you'd keep it."

"Terms, Bram," I said. "I'm throwing them out."

He laughed, a low, unsteady laugh, and picked me up.

The bed was the same bed.

He laid me down on it, and his shirt slid off my shoulders, and he looked at me for a long moment in the moonlight from the window.

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