Chapter 11: What the Old Healer Knew

Hamish's POV

She fell asleep with her hand still on my chest.

I lay beside her on the quilt for a long time without moving, listening to her breathe.

Then I eased her palm onto the pillow and went out onto the porch.

My side was smooth.

I put my hand over the place where nine years of scar had been.

I could not make myself believe it.

The wolf in me was quiet and awed.

I had spent a week telling myself I only wanted her safe.

I had been lying.

I wanted her under me and over me and in every room of my house.

I told myself it had started the night her wolf said my name across the river.

That was not true either.

It had started five summers ago, at the border fair.

A girl in a plain blue dress had bought a pot of honey from the Ashfall stall.

She had touched my sleeve to ask for change.

I had felt a hard tug in my chest, and I had looked up, and she had already turned away.

I asked about her.

The honey seller said she was the youngest Halstead daughter, a quiet one.

She said a betrothal with the Alpha's heir was already in the works.

I did what an honorable man does.

I stayed away.

It had been the worst decision of my life, and I had made it for five years.

Wolves moved in the pines below the cabin.

My patrol, three of them, coming up the path.

I went down to meet them.

Behind them, on a pony, came the old Ashfall Healer in his patched coat, with his bag on his knee.

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