One Girl, A Pack Of Beasts novel · Chapter 25 of 32
Chapter 25: Before Dark
The street was empty.
Everyone in Saltmarket was in the Hall or outside its doors, waiting for the horn.
Our boots squeaked in the packed snow.
Kell didn't say anything, and neither did I, and I didn't let go of his hand.
The sun sat low over the river, white and small. There were three hours of light left, maybe four.
The lodge was quiet.
The bear was asleep in his bunk by the hearth, snoring through his bound jaw.
The chief's old aunt had left a pot of broth on the coals and gone up to the feast.
I walked past the bunks to the door at the back.
The old hunter's room.
The only room in the lodge with a door.
"He said to use it," I said. "Last night. He said he was too old to be shocked, and too old to climb the stairs to the Hall twice in one day."
"There are no stairs to the Hall."
"I think that was the joke."
Kell's mouth moved at the corner.
I opened the door.
It was a small room with one window, and the shutter was open a crack.
A long bar of white afternoon light lay across the floor and the bed.
The bed was wide and old and sagging in the middle, piled with a bearskin and two wool blankets.
There was a carved chest under the window, and a knife rack with no knives in it.
I closed the door behind us.
Then I turned around and put my back against it.
Kell stood in the bar of light.
He looked tired. He looked thin. The light showed every line of his face, the gray under his eyes, the mark under his jaw.
"Say it," I said.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you were going to say at the table. When you gave me this." I touched the pendant through my shirt. "Say all of it, now, so you don't have to say it later."
He was quiet for a moment.
"If I go cold on that mountain," he said, "you don't stop for me."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of One Girl, A Pack Of Beasts are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 24 · All chapters · Chapter 26 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend