Chapter 14: The Hold

Torin's POV

She weighed nothing.

That was the first thing I noticed, and I hated it.

I carried Joanna Ellery out of the Council hall with her head against my shoulder and her hair across my sleeve.

Hazel walked at my elbow with her heels cracking on the stone.

"The clinic," she said. "The pack doctor is already there."

"I know where it is."

"Then why are you walking so slowly?"

I wasn't. I was walking as fast as I could without jarring her.

Behind us the hall was still loud.

Somebody was calling for water for Caleb.

I did not look back.

My wolf had not been quiet since the gate.

Since then it had paced inside my ribs every time I stood within a hundred feet of her.

It had watched her through glass.

It had whined when she laughed at something Hazel said.

Now it was silent.

It had gone down onto its belly, and every part of it was pointed at the woman in my arms.

Mine, it said.

It had said it before.

The first time was at the Rowland gate, when the wind turned and her scent hit me.

Honey and rain, and a trace of the child.

I had gone still in front of a hundred guards.

I had said nothing, because she was married to another wolf.

Now she wasn't.

The cord lay in two pieces on a stone floor, and the bond was cut.

Every wolf in that hall had felt it go.

Hazel's shoulders had dropped, and the old woman had put a hand on her chest.

The thread that was left, the one from Joanna to me, stood wide open.

I had been holding it shut with both hands since the gate.

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