Chapter 7: Pinned

Jolene's SUV left at sunset, and she did not say goodbye.

She sat in the back seat with her hands over her stomach and her eyes on the road.

"Let her go," Alexander said, beside me on the porch. "If you warn Braden's Luna, Braden hears it by morning."

"I wasn't going to warn her."

"Then what do you want to do?"

I looked at the dark ridge beyond the yard.

"Teach me to fight," I said.

He did not laugh.

"Tonight?"

"The Moot is in five weeks. Braden will not let me walk in and read the charter. He will put his hands on me before I reach the third line."

"You have a wolf," Alexander said. "You've had her one week."

"Then I have one week of practice to catch up on twenty years."

He studied my face for a long time.

"Barn," he said. "Ten minutes. Wear something you can move in."

The barn smelled of hay and old rope.

He had lit two lanterns and rolled back a mat, and he stood in the middle of it in a grey shirt and work trousers, barefoot.

I came in wearing leggings and one of his old flannels.

"Shift only if I tell you," he said. "This is hands first. Braden will try to grab you, so we start there."

"Fine."

"He's bigger than you. He'll go for your arms."

"Show me."

He reached for my wrist.

I turned my shoulder, dropped my weight, and slid out of his grip, and his hand closed on air.

"Again," I said.

He came faster, and I broke the grip again.

By the fourth try I had hooked his ankle with my foot, and he went down on one knee, laughing.

"That," he said, "is how you hurt a man."

"I delivered a thousand babies. I know where the body bends."

He came up off the floor in one move, and the laugh was gone from his face.

He grabbed my waist, spun me, and put me flat on the mat with my wrists pinned beside my head.

His weight came down along my body, warm and solid.

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