Chapter 11: Blackmoor

Blackmoor Keep was a fortress of black stone with a hundred lit windows.

Mathis walked me through the great hall past rows of wolves who stared.

Some of them bowed.

An old man at the back of the hall spat on the floor and muttered about the Omega who had made his Alpha wait three years.

Mathis stopped.

He did not raise his voice.

"She is Ardrey," he said. "Anyone who wishes to repeat that to her face may come forward."

Nobody came.

He showed me to a room in the east wing, with a wide bed and a fire already lit.

His own rooms, he said, were at the other end of the keep.

"As agreed," he said.

"As agreed."

He stood in the doorway a moment longer, and he was close enough that I could smell iron and smoke.

Then he took the whole ruby out of his coat, joined and strung on a new gold chain, and held it out.

"It's yours."

I took it.

"Goodnight, Sabine."

"Goodnight."

He walked away, and I listened to his boots all the way down the hall.

I sat on the bed with the jewel in my hand until the fire burned low.

Then I stood up and put it on.

It lay cool against my collarbone, and it warmed as I stood there.

I thought of his thumb on my knuckles.

I thought of his mouth, and the sound he made when I kissed him by the river.

I thought of three years with a man who had held me in the dark and never once wanted me this much.

I went out into the hall barefoot.

His door was at the far end, a heavy oak door with a lamp burning behind it.

I knocked once.

It opened so fast he must have been standing behind it.

He was in his shirt and trousers, with his hair tousled, and his chest rose and fell.

"Terms," he said, hoarsely.

"Mine," I said. "I can overrule them."

I stepped inside and shut the door with my back.

For a moment neither of us moved.

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