Chapter 6: Rhett's POV: The Old Road

Rhett's POV

I set her down at the barn door and made myself let go.

She was shaking and her lips were blue.

She was glaring at me anyway.

"I'm fine," Jessa said through her teeth.

"You're not."

"I'm furious. It's the same color on me."

My beta had already come up with a blanket.

He had the look he gets when he sees more than I want him to.

"Take her to the Rawson house," I told him. "Hot tea, dry clothes. Nobody goes near her."

"Alpha."

"Now."

He wrapped the blanket around her, and she let him, which told me how cold she was.

She didn't look back at me once.

I put on jeans from the pile on the grass, and I climbed to the border hill.

Two of Hiram Pierce's men stood by a fresh-set post with a coil of wire at their feet.

Neither of them was armed in any way I could point to.

"This is Cedar Ridge ground," I said.

"Mr. Pierce asked us to mark a viewing line for his guests, Alpha."

The taller one smiled.

"Security for the wedding party. Wouldn't want anyone wandering over."

"The treaty bans guards on this hill."

"We're not guards. We're fence men."

I looked at the post, and at the wire, and at the quiet grin he wasn't bothering to hide.

I could have broken his jaw.

That was what the grin was for.

One blow from me on the hill the treaty protected, in front of twelve Blackwater witnesses, and Hiram would have his war.

It would have my name on it.

"Take it down," I said.

"Of course." He picked up the post as if it weighed nothing. "We only wanted to be helpful."

They carried it off.

Behind me, in the trees, my wolf paced and snarled and would not be quiet.

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