They Sold Me as a Brood Bride, So I Enrolled in the Boys' Alpha College novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Say It Where a Wall Can Hear

Cadoc's POV

I had been Captain of the Hall for fourteen months, and in that time I had broken one man's arm, and he had deserved it.

I had never wanted to break a second arm as badly as I did that afternoon.

The older Penhallow stood in the doorway of the quarry hut with a flag oar and a smile, and every instinct I owned told me to go through him.

I did not.

My father had taught me that the order of things mattered, and the order was this: she first.

"You've got a good eye, Penhallow," I said.

I had stepped in front of her without deciding to.

"I've got a good nose," he said.

"You've got a good story. Tell it to the Warden."

"I will."

"You'll tell it to nobody," said a very quiet voice from the stove.

Iolo had risen.

He was a head shorter than the Penhallow and half his weight, and I had never in my life heard him raise his voice.

He took one step forward, and the older Penhallow's smile went out like a lamp in a draught.

"Merrick," the Penhallow said. "You're not in this."

"I'm in all of it," Iolo said.

It was the most I had ever heard him say to a stranger.

The Penhallow looked from one of us to the other.

I watched him do the sum, and not like the answer.

"This isn't finished," he said, and went out into the rain.

Behind me, she was crying without a sound.

I turned.

She sat on the bench with her arms wrapped round her knees and a towel half off one shoulder, and she did not look like a boy at all.

She looked nineteen and tired and furious, and she was the bravest person I had ever met.

I wanted to put my hands on her.

I wanted it more than I wanted to breathe.

I did not know yet that Iolo wanted the same.

I knew only that the slate token was hot against my chest, as it had been hot since the gravel.

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