Chapter 17: No Deal

"No," I said.

Lorna blinked.

"You haven't heard the terms."

"I heard enough. You want what's mine, and you'll walk me on it like a dog."

"I'm offering you your legs."

"You're offering me what you took."

Her smile slipped.

It was a small tightening at the corner of her mouth.

I had watched that face for two years and never seen it do that.

"Took," she said.

"The salve."

I had thought of it in the van, with the basket on my knees.

"You rubbed salve into my back every morning for five weeks.

"I always felt worse after, not better."

Lorna said nothing.

"What's in it?"

"Numbroot," she said.

She said it flatly.

"For the pain. You were screaming the first night. I only dulled you."

"You dulled me for five weeks."

"The break needed to be left alone."

"It needed to be reset, and you knew it, and you kept me flat on my back."

"Your mate was dying of the cold," Lorna said, and her voice finally cracked.

"He was the Alpha of this pack, and he was sick, and you were lying there with his strength in you!

"Do you know what that did to him? To my father?"

"I know exactly what it did."

"Then you know I did it for Redwater."

"No," I said. "You did it for the dais."

She was breathing hard now.

I had never seen her lose her temper. She did it badly, with her whole face.

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