Chapter 12: Not Forgiveness

The midwife talked for an hour, and when she finished, nobody in that hall was looking at Beatrix.

The elders ruled before midnight.

Finlay was Yvaine's son and Hamish's son, and Beatrix would stay in her rooms under guard until the full council met.

I walked out of the hall with my legs shaking and my ears ringing.

I did not go to my room.

I went to the one at the end of the north hall, where there was a lamp burning under the door.

Hamish was sitting at his desk in his shirtsleeves with Finlay's little blanket from his mother's cedar box in front of him.

He looked up when I came in, and he stood so fast his chair went over.

"Yvaine."

"Don't say anything."

I shut the door behind me and turned the lock.

"I want one night that isn't grief," I said. "That's all it is. It isn't forgiveness, and it isn't a bond. You don't get to call it anything."

His chest was going up and down.

"You said no touching," he said hoarsely.

"I know what I said."

I crossed the room.

I took two fistfuls of his shirt and pulled his mouth down onto mine.

He made a sound against my lips that went straight through me, and then his hands were in my hair.

He kissed me deep and slow, and then not slow at all.

His tongue stroked mine, and I bit his lower lip hard enough to feel him shudder.

"Yvaine," he said into my mouth.

"Shut up," I said. "Fuck me."

He laughed, short and rough.

It was the first time I had heard him laugh in five years.

Then he lifted me by the thighs and my back hit the wall, and every thought I had went white.