Chapter 8: Come Home

"No," I said.

Torin nodded as if he had expected it.

"I won't be anyone's charity," I said. "I've had eight years of being kept."

"It isn't charity. It's a garden that needs someone who knows what she's doing."

"Then hire a gardener."

"I'd rather have the one who grew the best feverfew in the north."

I picked up my bags. Pia, beside me, made a small noise.

He did not push. He reached into his jacket and held out a plain white card.

"Redfern, the house on the river road. The offer stands for a week, and longer if you like."

I took it so he would put his hand down.

He got back into the truck, and I watched its taillights go along the road until the pines swallowed them.

"Clara," Pia whispered. "That man looked at you like you were the sun."

"He looked at me like I was a stray."

"Mm," Pia said. "That's not the face he made."

She had a cot in the back room of the clinic, between a shelf of bandages and a locked cabinet of cough syrups.

I slept on it in my clothes.

I dreamed of the bond, of the rope snapping again, of Rhett's whine.

I woke with my hand clamped over my chest.

My wolf lay quiet. She was not hurt, only awake.

In the morning, Pia lent me a clean scrub top and made me eat a boiled egg.

At nine the clinic bell rang.

I looked up from the table and saw Rhett on the step.

He was thinner already. He had a bruise-colored shadow under each eye, and his shirt was buttoned wrong.

Two pack guards stood behind him on the path, shifting their feet.

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