Chapter 13: Born to Carry Her

The Halstead house was dark except for one lamp in the upstairs window.

I knew which window it was.

I knew which stair creaked and which shutter stuck, and I went in through the kitchen door with the key that was still under the third flowerpot.

Nobody had changed it.

Nobody had thought I would come back at night, on my own feet, with another Alpha's coat on my shoulders.

I climbed the stairs in the dark.

The door to Melisande's room stood ajar.

She lay propped on four pillows with her hair stuck to her cheeks, and every breath she took made a small wet sound.

She was thinner than she had been a week ago, and her lips had a blue edge.

I stood in the doorway and watched her fight for air.

I had come to see whether it was true.

It was true.

Her eyes opened and found me.

"Yvaine," she said.

"I'm here."

"You came."

"I came to look at you."

She tried to smile, and the effort turned into a cough that shook the whole bed.

I crossed the room before I had decided to.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, the way I had on a thousand nights, and laid my palm between her shoulder blades.

The heat came at once.

It rose out of my arm and ran into her, and I felt it go.

Her cough loosened.

Her shoulders dropped, and she took one long, clean breath.

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