Chapter 11: Mended

On the twenty-eighth day, the midwife looked at my stitches and said I was mended.

"Not a mark left," she said. "Go and be a person. I'll keep the pup tonight."

Rowan was waiting on the porch when I came out.

He had been quiet since a trip to Silverthorn eight days ago.

He held out a velvet bag.

"I've been carrying this since then," he said. "I wanted you healed before I gave it to you."

I opened it.

My mother's cuff lay in my hand, warm from his coat.

I could not speak.

"There's more," he said. "I recorded the Kestrel lawyer in that shop."

He held up his phone. "He wanted Lark's name on a registry before the hearing. The Dowager sent him."

He played it once, quietly.

I listened with the cuff clamped in my fist.

"Lark is a lender too," I said.

"Yes."

"They want her. Not me."

"They want what she can do for him," Rowan said. "They aren't getting it."

My hands were steady. That surprised me.

I slid the cuff onto my wrist, and it fit.

"Thank you," I said.

"You don't owe me for it."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm saying it."

He looked at me then, and I saw that he had been wanting me for weeks and had put all of it away.

"Rowan," I said. "The midwife says I can be a person tonight."

"I heard her."

"Stay."

His breath went out of him.

"Morwen."

"I'm not asking because I'm grateful. I'm asking because I want you."

He took one step, and I closed the rest.

His mouth was hot and slow, and I made it fast.

I fisted both hands in his coat and dragged him down to me.

He made a rough sound against my lips that went straight through my belly.

He backed me through the door of my den and kicked it shut.