They Called My Father a Traitor, So I Learned Every Secret They Buried novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What He Chooses at First Light

Kestrel's hand rested at my waist, warm through the thin fabric of my dress, while the clinic door waited behind him.

The lamp burned low beside the bed. His shirt lay on the floor with my stockings. His healing side was bare, the old wound marked by a pale seam beneath his ribs.

'You can still leave,' I said.

His fingers tightened once against me. 'You have asked me that three times.'

'You have answered twice.'

'I am answering again.'

He bent his head, stopping with his mouth just above mine. The pause made the choice clear. I could feel the restraint in him, the care he kept putting between want and action.

I touched the scar under his ribs. 'This is the last chance to change your mind.'

'Wynn.'

'Kestrel.'

His eyes held mine. 'I am staying because I want you. I am staying because you asked me to. I will not use either reason against you in the morning.'

That was the promise I needed. I drew him down.

His mouth met mine, careful for one breath, then less careful when I pulled him closer. He made a rough sound against my lips and stopped himself before it became a question.

'You may touch me,' I said.

His palm moved up my back. 'Tell me if you want me to stop.'

'I will.'

He kissed my throat. My hand found the back of his neck, and the rest of the clinic fell away. The stone floor, the lamp, the locked report drawer. All of it waited outside the small space between us.

His body was still healing. I knew every place that hurt him. I knew how far I could press, how his muscles tightened before pain reached his face, how he tried to hide the cost of wanting anything.

I did not let him hide from me.

When his forehead touched mine, his voice had gone low. 'Say it again.'

'You can stay.'

'With you?'

'With me.'

He kissed me once more, and this time neither of us stopped at the edge of the bed.

The clinic door opened before dawn.

Kestrel pulled away first. He reached for the blanket on the floor, but I caught his wrist.

'Leave it,' I said.

He looked toward the door, then back at me. 'Hadley.'

'She can wait.'

'I doubt that.'

The latch struck the wall.

Hadley stood there with a leather file under one arm and a mug in each hand. She took in Kestrel's bare feet, my dress twisted at the waist, and the blanket abandoned beside the bed.

'Good morning,' she said. 'I brought tea, a report, and the unpleasant certainty that I am interrupting something I will be expected to pretend I did not notice.'

'You brought the tea first,' I said.

'I have priorities. The report is ugly, but it cannot be drunk.'

Kestrel took one mug from her and handed it to me. His fingers brushed mine. My body remembered the night with embarrassing accuracy.

Hadley placed the file on the examination table. 'Before either of you starts looking noble and tragic, I want it recorded that I knocked.'

'You did not,' I said.

'I knocked in my heart.'

'Your heart has poor manners.'

'It learned from the pack office.'

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