Chapter 12: Breaking the Rules

Torin drove us home in the dark with both hands on the wheel and said nothing for two hours.

Pia fell asleep in the back seat with her cheek on the window.

I watched the pines go by and tasted the end of the day. It was salt and relief and a small, hard anger that would not settle.

"You were magnificent," he said at last.

"I was shaking."

"I know. I could smell it. You stood there and shook and said every word."

"Don't make it sound brave."

"It was the bravest thing I've watched anyone do in that hall." His thumb moved on the wheel. "I wanted to put my fist through the high table."

"Why didn't you?"

"You told me not to speak."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

We reached the river house after midnight.

Pia stumbled up to her room with her bag and a mumbled goodnight. The lights went off down the hall.

Torin held the kitchen door for me, and I walked in ahead of him.

The garden lay silver through the window. The new green shoots stood a hand high along the wall.

I stopped at the sink and gripped it.

"You've got that look," he said behind me.

"What look?"

"The look you had before you fainted."

"I'm not going to faint."

"Then what?"

I turned around.

He stood a pace away with his jacket over his arm, big and tired and quiet, with the scar white along his jaw.

My wolf lifted her head.

I had known what I wanted for three days, and for longer than that.

I had only been afraid to look at it.

"Your rules," I said. "A room. A seat at your table. A garden. And nothing else."

His face went still. "Yes."

"I'm breaking them."

He dropped the jacket.

I crossed the floor and took his shirt in both fists, and he caught my face in his hands.

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