Chapter 8: Storm Rules

The pack went back down the mountain at noon, and the sky turned the color of wet slate by evening.

Bram had stood in the yard watching them go until the last truck was out of sight.

The elders had given him until the Gathering to account for what he had said about Verity.

He hadn't argued.

That night I asked him my question across the kitchen table, with the stove between us.

"Why did you give Burke the gate order before the reading was over?"

"Because I knew what the healer would read," Bram said. "I knew what it would sound like to you. I knew you'd run."

"You were right."

"I wanted to be wrong."

I stared at my soup.

It was an answer, and it didn't help.

The first thunder came at ten, rolling up the valley.

By eleven the rain was loud on the roof and the porch lamp had blown out.

I lay in bed with the bolt drawn and listened to the wind take hold of the cabin.

Something cracked, outside, very loud, and a gust slammed the front door against its frame.

Then a heavy thump on the porch boards.

"Bram?"

No answer.

I got up.

I slid the bolt and pulled the door open.

The front room was black and full of wind, and the cabin door was swinging wide.

Bram was on his knees in the doorway, soaked, hauling the door shut against the storm with his bandaged hand.

A branch had come down across the porch where he'd been sitting, a limb as thick as my arm.