Chapter 4: Midnight at the Stables

Nyra's POV

"If they catch me, they'll skin me alive, my lady."

The stable boy couldn't have been older than fourteen. He was all elbows and freckles, and he kept glancing at the stable door like the Alpha himself might walk through it.

"Nobody is going to catch you, Pip." I pressed the ring into his palm and folded his fingers over it. "This was my mother's. It's real silver. Sell it in the market and you'll have enough to feed your family for a whole winter."

He stared at it. "Why me?"

"Because you're the only one who's smiled at me since I got here." I tried to smile back, but it came out shaky. "And because you know the back roads."

It was past midnight. The stables smelled of hay and leather and warm horse, and the only light came from a single lantern I'd turned down so low it barely glowed. My burned hand throbbed under its bandage. I hadn't slept. I couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Silas riding through the gates of Ashfall.

"Say it back to me," I whispered.

Pip swallowed. "The last cottage past the mill, by the crooked oak. Ask for Mama Odette. Tell her..." He frowned. "Tell her the little bird needs a new nest. Tonight."

"And?"

"And don't let anyone see me. And don't tell anyone who sent me."

"Good." I squeezed his shoulders. "Take the grey mare. She's fast and she doesn't spook."

He nodded and turned toward the stall. Then he froze.

Outside, gravel crunched under heavy boots.

We both stopped breathing.

"Go," I mouthed. "The back door. Go now."

Pip didn't argue. He was through the back of the stable and leading the grey mare into the trees before the footsteps reached the front. I grabbed the nearest saddle and threw it over the black gelding in the first stall, just as the door swung open.

"Going somewhere, wife?"

I didn't turn around. My hands kept working at the girth strap, even though they were shaking so badly I couldn't fasten it.

"I asked you a question."

"I couldn't sleep," I said. "I wanted some air."

"With a saddle."

"I like riding."

"At midnight." The boots came closer. "In the dark. Alone."

"Yes."

A big hand closed over mine on the strap and stopped it. He was right behind me again. I was starting to learn that he didn't stand anywhere else.

"You're a terrible liar, Nyra."

"Then why do you keep asking me questions?"

I hadn't meant to say it. It just came out, sharp and tired. I felt him go still behind me, and for a second I was sure I'd gone too far.

Then he laughed. It was short and low, barely a breath, but it was a real laugh, and it hit me harder than any slap could have. Five years ago I used to make him laugh like that every single day.

"Turn around," he said.

I turned. He was in shirtsleeves again, his hair messy, like he'd been lying awake too. The lantern threw shadows across the scar on his face.

"Where were you running to?" he asked.

"Nowhere."

"Ashfall?"

"No."

"To the aunt you're so worried about?"

Behind the stable, very faintly, I heard hooves on soft earth, moving away. Faster, Pip. Please, faster.

Lucan's head turned slightly toward the sound.

I didn't think. I just ran.

I ducked under his arm and bolted out the front door into the night. Cold air slammed into my lungs. I didn't know where I was going. I only knew that every second he spent chasing me was a second he wasn't listening for a boy on a grey mare.

"Nyra!"

I ran past the training yard, past the dark kitchen gardens, down the slope toward the trees. My slippers were useless on the wet grass. My burned hand screamed every time my arms swung. Behind me I heard him coming. He didn't sound hurried. He sounded certain.

The trees closed in around me. I knew this path. My feet remembered it before I did: left at the split birch, down the mossy bank, toward the sound of running water.

The river.

I stopped dead at the edge of it, panting. Moonlight broke silver across the water. The flat rock was still there, the one where he used to sit with his boots off, the one where he had pulled me into his lap under the full moon and pressed his teeth gently to my neck.

I hadn't meant to come here. My legs had brought me home.

A hand caught my arm and spun me around.

"Enough," Lucan growled.

He backed me against the trunk of the old willow, one hand flat beside my head, chest heaving. His eyes were wild. Not angry, exactly. Something else. Something that looked almost like fear.

"Why here?" he demanded. "Why did you run here?"

"I don't know."

"Don't lie to me." His voice cracked. "I dream about this place. Every night for five years I've dreamed about this river, and I don't know why. And now you run straight to it like you've done it a thousand times."

Because I have. With you.

I couldn't say it. Pack law sat on my tongue like a stone. I couldn't say anything at all.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

"Nobody," I said. "I'm just Ashfall's payment."

His jaw clenched. He looked at my mouth. And then, like a man losing a fight he'd been losing for days, he kissed me.

The kiss was hard and desperate, his hand sliding into my hair, his body pinning me against the bark. For one second I froze. Then five years of loneliness broke open inside me, and I kissed him back, my good hand fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer.

He made a rough sound against my lips. The scar at my collar blazed like fire. I felt the bond, the real bond, stretch and shiver awake between us like a muscle that hadn't moved in years.

He pulled back just an inch. His breath was ragged on my lips. When he opened his eyes, they weren't grey anymore.

They were gold. Wolf gold.

"Mine," he said.

The voice came from somewhere deep beneath his ribs, rough and old, and nothing like his own.

Then he blinked, and the gold vanished. He stumbled back from me like I'd struck him, pressing a hand to his chest, staring at me in pure shock.

"What did you just do to me?" he breathed.

"Nothing. Lucan, I didn't..."

"Don't." He held up a hand. It was shaking. "Don't say my name like that."

He turned and walked away into the dark without another word. This time he didn't look back, and he didn't drag me with him.

I stood alone by the river with my lips still burning, and I cried until I couldn't breathe.

It was nearly dawn when I crept back to my little room in the servants' wing.

The door was open a crack. I was sure I'd closed it.

I pushed it wider. The room was empty. The bed was still made. Nothing looked touched.

Except for the pillow.

Lying in the middle of it, placed carefully, like a gift, was a tiny wooden wolf. One ear was chipped. The tail was worn smooth from small hands rubbing it every night before sleep.

I had carved it myself. I'd given it to my son on his third birthday, and he hadn't let go of it since.

Underneath it was a folded scrap of paper that smelled of roses.

He cried for you. Such a sweet boy.