Chapter 19: The Ring

Fenny stayed away from the Prince's rooms until it was dark.

He walked the lower town instead, and sat for an hour in his own clinic with the lamp unlit.

Everything in it was his: the scale, the copper tub, the chair where Cavan had flopped on the first night.

He could not make himself feel that any of it was home.

When he finally climbed to the Hall, the bed was turned down and a single lamp burned.

Cavan sat up against the pillows with the wolf-pelt over his knees.

He was alpha again.

Fenny knew it before he crossed the threshold, by the pine smoke in the room and the way his own legs went loose.

"There you are," Cavan said.

"I needed air."

"I know." Cavan held out a hand. "Come here. Please."

Fenny set his bag on the floor.

He told himself he would only sit on the edge.

Then Cavan's palm slid up the back of his neck, careful of the place where there was no mark, and Fenny forgot the plan.

The kiss was long and slow.

It tasted of tea and honey cake.

Fenny kissed back with his eyes shut.

He thought: remember this.

He thought: you will want to be able to count every one.

"You're shaking," Cavan murmured.

"I'm cold."

"You're not."

Cavan drew him down into the sheets and stripped him, a button at a time, with a deliberate hand.

Fenny let him.

He lay with his arms over his head and watched the big gold shape of him move over his skin.

Cavan's mouth traced his ribs, the flat of his stomach, and stopped there, and rested.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Hid His Changing, Then His Doctor Became His Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.