Chapter 14: Hands on the Wall

He came back at dusk with nothing.

Anselm's riders had lost the cart's tracks at a stony crossroads forty miles east.

Matvei had ridden every road out of it until his horse stumbled.

I heard him on the stairs, slow and heavy, and I opened my door before he could pass it.

He stopped in the corridor with road dust to his eyebrows.

"The hawk hasn't come back," he said. "Nothing has."

"I know."

"I should be on the road."

"You've been on the road since noon, and your horse is half dead."

He didn't move.

"Come in," I said.

"Sorrel, I'm not fit to be near anyone."

"I didn't ask if you were fit."

I stepped back and held the door.

He came in.

I turned the key in the lock behind him.

It was my key, on my side of the door, and he heard it turn.

"I've been angry for two days," I said.

"I know."

"I'm still angry."

"Be angry."

"I will." I took his coat by the collar and pulled it off his shoulders. "Wall."

He looked at me.

"Hands flat on the wall," I said. "You said you'd hold to every word."

He crossed to the wall by the window, put both palms on the cold stone, and bowed his head between his arms.

I stood behind him and unlaced his shirt.

I pulled it over his head and dropped it on the floor.

The scars on his back were pale in the lamplight, old ones, and one long new line from a branch.

I put my mouth on the new one.

His whole back flexed.

"Stay there," I said.

"I'm staying."

I walked around him until I could see his face. His eyes were shut.

I unlaced my dress and let it fall.

I was naked in front of him in the lamplight, and I watched his throat move.

"Look," I said.

He opened his eyes.

Whatever he was going to say went out of him.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and then I lay back and put my heels on the mattress and opened my knees.

"Come here," I said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Forced To Bear The Alpha's Son from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.