Chapter 16: The Curse Wakes

The first wave hit me while Garland was still smiling.

It started low in my belly and went through my back, and it was a pain I had no name for.

It felt like a hand reaching inside me and closing.

I grabbed the edge of the table, and the cloth came with me, and the plates went off the end and broke.

"Linnea!"

Bram's voice was nearer, and I couldn't turn my head.

The second wave dropped me to my knees on the dais.

Four hundred wolves watched it happen.

I could hear them, from a long way off, saying my name in every key.

"Breathe," a woman said. "Somebody get her breathing."

"It's the curse. Look at her. It's the curse."

"Garland, stop it."

"I'm doing nothing," Garland said, in his mild voice. "It's nothing I can do now. It's her own knowing that does it."

I put my forehead on the boards.

Underneath me, the pups were moving, three small frantic shapes, and something cold was crawling toward them.

I am not proud of what came out of my mouth.

It was not a word, and it went on for a long time.

Then Bram's hands were on me, and the cold stopped for the space of a breath.

He had come over the front of the dais in one jump.

He knelt with one arm under my shoulders and the other hand flat against my stomach, and I felt the bond open, wide and hot.

He was pouring himself into it.

"I've got you," he said. "Lin, look at me. I've got you."

"It hurts."

"I know. Take mine. Take all of it."