*Chapter 10** **The Contract**

*

*Have we met before?*

The words hung in the cold morning air between us.

Behind me, the whole pack was watching. I could feel their eyes on my back. My father was standing on the porch with his chest puffed out. Vivienne was beside him, smiling her thin red smile. Somewhere in a back window, my mother was holding her breath.

And in front of me stood the man I had held in the dark, asking if he knew me.

*Yes,* my heart wanted to say. *Yes, you know me. You laid your coat under me so I wouldn't be cold. You kissed my tears away. You said I was perfect.*

But I thought of the punishment cells under the old barn. I thought of my mother's shaking hands.

"No, Alpha," I said. "We have never met."

He looked at me a moment longer. His gold eyes searched my face like he was reading a book in a language he almost understood. Then something in him seemed to close, like a door.

"Get in the car," he said.

---

The car was long and black inside, with soft leather seats that smelled new. Rowan drove. Kael sat in the back beside me, but as far away as the seat would let him, with his big body pressed against the far door.

I sat with my small bag on my knees and stared out the window.

Hollowmere went past. The pack houses. The school where I had eaten lunch alone for six years. The path to the old forest. I turned my head to watch it until the trees hid it, and something in my chest went tight.

I had been so sad in that place. So lonely. And still, it was the only home I had ever known.

"You can cry if you want," Kael said.

I turned. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking out his own window, at the fields going by.

"I'm not going to cry," I said.

"Most girls would."

"I'm not most girls."

The words came out before I could stop them. I bit my lip. He turned his head and looked at me, and one of his dark eyebrows went up, the one with the scar through it.

"No," he said slowly. "It seems you're not."

Then he went back to looking out the window.

We drove for a long time in silence. The road went up into the hills, and the trees changed from soft green oaks to tall dark pines. The air coming through the small gap in the window turned cold and sharp. Far away, I could smell the sea, salt and wind. I had never seen the sea.

"How did you get the bruise?" Kael asked suddenly.

I put my hand on my cheek. "I fell."

"That's a lie."

He said it so simply. Not angry. Just like he was saying the sky was blue.

My heart started to pound. "How do you know?"

"Your heart jumped. Your breath stopped. And you looked down and to the left." He still wasn't looking at me. "I've been listening to people lie to me for twenty years, Mira. You are very bad at it."

I didn't know what to say. I just sat there with my face burning.

"Your father?" he asked.

I said nothing.

"Or the stepmother?"

I said nothing again. But my silence was an answer, and we both knew it.

He made a low sound in his throat. It wasn't quite a growl, but it was close. Then he reached into the seat pocket in front of him and took out a folder. A thick brown leather folder, with papers inside.

"We should talk about why you're here," he said. "And what this is. So there's no mistake."

He opened the folder and took out three pages, and he held them out to me.

At the top of the first page, in big black letters, it said: MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

I took it with shaking hands.

"You can read?" he asked.

"Yes." I lifted my chin. "I can read."

"Good. Then read it. And then I'll tell you in plain words, so you understand exactly what you're agreeing to."

I read it. It was long, and full of strange old legal words, but I understood most of it. When I finished, I looked up. He was watching me now, with his arms crossed over his big chest.

"Rule one," he said. "This marriage lasts one year. Not one day more. At the end of the year, it's over. You leave."

"Yes, Alpha."

"Rule two. We will live in the same house, because people will talk if we don't. But you will have your own room. I will have mine. There's a door between them, and it stays locked."

My cheeks went hot. "Yes, Alpha."

"Rule three. No touching. Not unless we're in public and it has to be done. A hand on your arm at dinner. Standing close at a party. That's all. I won't come to your bed. And I don't expect you to come to mine."

I looked down at the paper so he wouldn't see my face. *I already have been in your bed,* I thought. *If you can call wet moss a bed.*

"Rule four," he said, and his voice changed. It went lower and harder. "Don't fall in love with me."

I looked up.

"I mean it," he said. "I'm not a nice man, Mira. Whatever they say about me in your little pack, some of it is true. And there's something else you should know. I have a mate. I marked her two nights ago, in your forest. I don't know where she is right now. But I will find her. And when I do, I'll belong to her. All of me. There will be nothing left over for anyone else."

Every word went into me like a little knife. Beautiful, terrible little knives.

*He's talking about me,* I thought. *He's sitting right next to me and telling me how much he loves me, and he doesn't even know it.*

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I did neither.

"I understand," I whispered.

"Rule five. When the year is over, you'll get money. Enough to buy a house of your own, anywhere you want. Far away from your father, if that's what you like. You'll have your freedom. You'll never have to go back to Hollowmere again."

That one made me look up. My freedom. A house of my own. No Vivienne. No Selene. No father with his heavy hands.

For a moment it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

"And if you find her sooner?" I asked. "Your mate?"

"Then the contract ends early. You still get all of the money." His eyes went to the window again. "That's rule six. Also, nobody in Blackfang knows this is a contract. Nobody except Rowan. As far as my pack knows, you're my wife. You'll be treated like one. If anyone in my house disrespects you, you tell me."

I looked at Rowan in the front seat. He caught my eye in the mirror and gave me a small, kind smile.

"And rule seven," Kael said.

He turned his whole body to face me on the seat. For the first time since the car started moving, he looked straight at me and didn't look away.

"Never lie to me."

I couldn't breathe.

"I can live with almost anything," he said. "I can live with a wife I don't know. I can live with a cold house and a paper marriage. But I can't live with a liar under my roof. I've had enough lies to last me a hundred years." His gold eyes were steady on mine. "So whatever you do, Mira, don't lie to me. If you don't want to answer something, say so. I'll respect that. But don't lie."

The car went over a bump. My bag slid on my knees.

"I'll try," I said.

It was the only true thing I could say.

He watched me a moment longer. Then he nodded, and took a pen out of his pocket, and held it out to me.

"If you agree, sign at the bottom. If you don't agree…" He shrugged. "Then I'll take you back to your father, and the Hollowmere Gamma can find another way to pay his blood debt."

I thought about my father finding another way. I thought about what he would do to me if I came home.

I took the pen.

But before I put it to the paper, I stopped.

"Can I ask for something?" I said.

He looked surprised. "Ask."

"There's a servant in my father's house." My voice was shaking a little, so I made it stronger. "A woman. Her name is Nora. She works in the kitchen. She… she's the one who raised me. She's the only one who was ever kind to me." I swallowed. "Will you protect her?"

Kael's eyes narrowed.

"Protect her from what?"

I couldn't tell him. Not the truth. Not about Vivienne and the cells.

"From my stepmother," I said. It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't everything.

He was quiet for a long moment. Too long.

"Nora," he said at last. "This woman. Does she have silver in her hair? A gentle face?"

My blood went cold.

"Yes," I whispered.

"I saw her yesterday. In your father's kitchen." His eyes stayed on my face. "She burned a basket of pepper in the fire. Right when I walked in."

"She's very clumsy," I said quickly.

His eyebrow with the scar went up again.

"Is she?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it. He could hear everything.

But he didn't push. He just looked at me with those burning gold eyes, and something was moving behind them. Thinking. Wondering.

"I'll think about it," he said finally.

It wasn't yes. But it wasn't no.

I put the pen to the paper.

My hand was shaking so badly that the first letter of my name came out crooked. I pressed harder. M. I. R…

The car hit a deep hole in the road.

The whole car jumped. The pen slipped out of my fingers. The papers slid off my knees. I grabbed for them, and Kael grabbed for them at the same moment, and his big warm hand came down right on top of mine.

Everything stopped.

The moonstone was cold against my chest. It had kept me quiet all morning, like a blanket over a fire. But now, under my collar, I felt it go colder. Colder than ice. So cold it almost burned. It was fighting something.

And it was losing.

Under my hair, my hidden mark woke up.

Thump.

Not a soft pulse this time. A hard, heavy beat, like a fist knocking on a door from the inside.

Thump. Thump.

Heat poured up from his hand into mine, up my arm, into my chest. My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't even think. I could only feel his skin on my skin, and the beat in my neck getting louder and louder and louder…

I looked down at our hands.

His hand was shaking.

The big, strong hand of the Butcher of Nine Packs. The hand that had broken a rogue's wrist like a stick. It was resting on top of mine, and it was trembling.

Just like it had in the forest. Just like the first time he reached for me in the dark.