My Mate Gave My Wolf to His Mistress novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Bram's POV
Bram's POV
She slept for fourteen hours, and I sat in the chair by the bed and watched her do it.
The healer had dressed her hands in salve and linen.
Someone had pinned a sprig of rosemary to the bedpost, which is a Stonefell custom for the newly cleared of a bad name.
Maud's ledger lay shut on the table beside me, the last page folded under the cord.
Eleven names, headed *The living.* Maud had gone to fetch the first of them herself, and the riders were due by dark.
When she woke, the sun was low and red in the west window.
She turned her head on the pillow and looked at me.
"You're still there."
"I said I wasn't going anywhere."
"You said it at midnight, when I was crying." She sat up. The blanket slid off her bare shoulders, and I saw the two marks, the pale scar on the left and the new crescent on the right. "Men say a great many things at midnight."
"I'm saying one at sundown."
She waited.
I had thought about this for fourteen hours, and I still did not know how to say it so that it would not be a leash.
"Mate-right," I said. "The law says I can decide your wolf. For the pack's good, for your own, for any reason I can find."
"I know the law."
"I don't want it. I'll say so in front of the council if you like. I'll burn the page."
"Bram."
"I'm offering you nothing. No hold, no claim, no sealing. The bond is there whether you answer it or not, and you can walk out of this keep tomorrow and ride to the coast, and I will never come after you."
I made myself finish.
"I'll only wait where you left me."
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she pushed back the blankets and stood up.
She was naked, the firelight on her ribs and hips, her long hair loose to her waist.
She crossed the room and stood between my knees.
"You're a fool," she said, "and I choose you."
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