The Alpha King's Heart novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: You Can Cry

The Keep's healer was a quiet gray-haired wolf who set my mother's jaw without a word and left a jar of salve on the nightstand.

Mom would not speak to her either.

She sat on the edge of a bed in the guest wing with Toby asleep against her side, and she stared at the door and watched it.

"Mom," I said. "Talk to me."

"Not tonight," she said.

"You went white when you saw him."

"Not tonight, Macy."

She closed her eyes.

I stood in the hall outside with my arms wrapped around my own ribs.

The King was at the end of it, with his back against the wall.

He had been there since we arrived.

He had not come closer, and he had not gone away.

I walked up to him.

"I have rules," I said.

"Say them."

"One. You don't touch me unless I ask you to."

"Agreed."

"Two. No mark. You don't bite me, you don't try to, and you don't ask for it again until I tell you."

"Agreed."

"Three." I stopped.

My voice had started to shake and I made it stop.

"You never lie to me. About anything. Even if it's ugly."

Something crossed his face too fast for me to read.

"I'll tell you the truth," he said.

"That's not the same as never lying."

"It's the same thing I'm able to promise tonight."

I should have noticed that.

I was too tired.

"Three days," I said. "Then I take my family home."

"If that's what you want."

"It is."

"Then good night, Macy."

It was the first time he had said my name when nobody else was listening.

I did not say it back.

The room he had given me had a big bed, a fireplace, and a door with a heavy bolt on the inside.

I locked it.

I stood in the middle of the floor and looked at that bolt for a long time.

Then I took off my shirt, and the bandage under it, and tried to look at my back in the mirror over the dresser.

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