Chapter 16: Clean

It didn't hurt the way Linden had thought it would.

It hurt worse, and then it didn't hurt at all.

The fire went into the mark.

He felt it find the bite.

He felt it find every thread the bite had sunk into him, down his spine and around his ribs and into the back of his skull.

Then it burned them.

One by one.

He smelled wolf.

Osric's smell, pine and wet fur and cold iron, rising off Linden's own skin in a cloud of steam.

Three years of it.

The smell of every night Osric had turned his back to him.

Then the steam blew away across the pool, and it was gone.

Linden lay on the rock and breathed.

His lungs filled all the way to the bottom for the first time in weeks.

The fever was gone.

Not falling. Gone.

There was nothing in the back of his neck at all.

No throb. No pull.

No thread running back down the mountain to Blackmere.

He reached up and touched it.

Smooth skin.

New, tender, a little hot, like skin under a scab.

But smooth.

"Ivor," he said. "It's gone. It's clean."

Ivor didn't answer.

Linden rolled over.

Ivor was kneeling where he'd been, sitting back on his heels.

His head had dropped forward.

His braid hung over his shoulder, and it wasn't silver anymore.

It was grey.

"Ivor."

Linden got up on his knees and took Ivor's face in his hands.

It was cold.

The grey had come up his arms and into his neck.

Under the skin of Ivor's throat, where the gold had glowed in the larder, there was nothing. No light. Not a spark.

His lips were the color of slate.

"No," Linden said. "No, no. You don't get to do this."

Ivor's eyes opened.

They were still gold.

Faded, like an old coin rubbed thin, but gold.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Wrong Bond: Your Omega Is Driving Me Crazy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.