Chapter 14: Bettany's Bargain

"Absolutely not," said Wilda.

"No," said the bear-kin woman.

"Take a knife," said the lynx-kin girl.

Orrin didn't say anything.

He read the message twice on my phone and handed it back.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I want to know what she's got."

"Then go," he said. "I'll be close."

"She said alone."

"I'll be close," he said again, "and alone."

Bettany picked the café in the old ferry terminal, at seven on Monday morning, when nobody goes there but men in work boots.

She was already at a corner table when I walked in.

I almost didn't know her.

No ring light.

No cream knit set.

A gray hoodie, her honey hair in a clip, her face bare and tired.

She'd bought two coffees.

She pushed one at me.

"I didn't know how you take it," she said.

"I don't take it from you," I said, and sat down.

She smiled at that, the old sweet smile, and it didn't reach anywhere.

"Okay. Fair." She turned her phone face up on the table. "I've kept every text he ever sent me. Eight years. I'm a little bit of a hoarder."

She slid the phone across.

I read the first one with my coffee going cold in front of me.

Mom won't live forever. When she's gone, I marry you.

The next one was from the week of my bonding.

The fox is a registry wife. That's all. Mom gets her kin bride, the company stays in the family, and I get you.

Then one from last year.

She'll never know the difference. She thinks the guest room is a phase.

Then one with a date I knew by heart.

February 10, 12:14 a.m.

She's knocking. Ignore it. Come back to bed.

My hands had gone cold around the cup.

I scrolled down without meaning to.

Under that one, Bettany had written back.

lol her ears were all flat.

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