Chapter 8: Her Twin

I hid my hands under the blanket when he came in.

It didn't help.

Dane stopped in the doorway with the lantern, and his eyes dropped to my fingers.

Then they came up to my face, and the silver in it.

"Show me," he said quietly.

I took my hands out.

The claws were as long as my smallest finger now, translucent and pale as new frost.

He set the lantern on the floor, and knelt at the foot of the bed.

"Cardross silver," he said.

I stared at him.

"You know what it is?"

"My grandfather fought beside the last Cardross alpha."

He took my wrist in both hands, very gently, and turned the claws to the light.

"He used to say a silver wolf in the field was worth a hundred black ones."

"The Marrows had the line hunted until nobody believed there were any left."

"There's one."

"There are two," he said slowly. "Aren't there?"

I breathed in.

I had spent five weeks being careful.

I had spent the same five weeks with his mouth and hands on me, and somewhere in there I'd stopped wanting to be.

"My name is Brenna Cardross," I said.

He shut his eyes.

"Lena was my twin."

When he opened them again they were wet.

He didn't wipe them.

"I was at the northern border when it happened," he said.

"Four hundred miles, and a fortnight on the road."

"I came back to find Rowena in the great hall in that."

"You didn't ask where it came from?"

"I asked her captain."

"He said a wolf-girl had saved the princess and died of her wounds."

"He said Rowena wore the pelt out of grief."

His voice shook.

"I believed him for eleven days."

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