010

MAEVE

Blade shouldered the door open, crossed the room in a few strides, and set me on my feet in the middle of his floor.

Not gently. My knees nearly buckled.

I stood there for a second, breathing hard, staring at the same bed, the same window, the same tobacco smell I'd woken up in. I had been so close to the trees. I had been so close to escaping.

Then the anger came up through me so fast it burned. I stormed across the room, gripped the post at the foot of the bed, and spun around.

"How dare you?" My voice shook, and I let it. "How dare you bring me back here?"

Behind him, the lock clicked. He'd turned the key without even looking. I hated that sound more than I hated him.

"Do you know how important it is for me to be out there?" I flung a hand toward the window. "My brother is sick and he needs me."

Blade leaned his shoulders against the door and folded his arms. He took up so much space that the room seemed smaller around him. "He's a man," he said. "He'll survive."

I laughed. It came out ugly.

"Survive?”

"Yes."

"Do you get it?" I stepped toward him. My hands were trembling, and I pressed them into fists to stop it. "Do you have any idea what kind of life he's facing out there? What we've been facing? He has one working hand. He hasn't eaten in four days. He's been sitting by that water counting the hours, and you think he'll just survive?"

Something flickered across Blade's face. It was quick, like a crack in a wall, and then it was gone.

He let out a long breath through his nose. He rubbed the back of his neck like it ached.

"I have a solution for that."

"What solution?"

"I'll probably have to bring him here."

Everything in me went still.

"Excuse me?" I said. "Did I hear you right?"

"You heard me right."

I didn't know what to do with that. I had come in ready for a fight. I'd braced for no, for threats, and instead he'd handed me the one thing I wanted and wrapped it in a growl. I didn't trust it. Not for a second.

So I shrugged, and winced when a pain pulled at my shoulder. I clutched my arm. The skin was already tender where the men had ground me into the dirt.

"That bastard grabbed me so hard," I muttered. "I'll have bruises for a week."

Something dark moved behind his eyes. He crossed the room in two steps and stopped so close that I had to tilt my head back to keep looking at him.

"If you'd listened to me," he said quietly, "none of that would have happened."

"Listened?" My arm dropped. "To you?"

"To me."

"I'll be damned if I listen to a word you say." It came out faster than I could stop it. "You might be the alpha of this pack, but you're not my alpha. You don't control me."

His jaw flexed.

He didn't move, and that was worse. The whole room seemed to pull tight around him, like the air itself was holding its breath. A vein stood out in his neck. I had seen that look on wolves before, right before they struck. There was almost no patience left in it. One more word and he'd snap.

I swallowed.

Maybe I shouldn't push him. Maybe, for the first time in my life, I should keep my mouth shut.

I looked away first, which annoyed me, and made a show of tugging at the waistband of the jeans like I'd just remembered something.

The food.

My hand slid under the shirt and felt along the denim. Nothing. I checked the other side. Nothing was there. I turned the waistband out completely and shook it, and one lonely crumb of bread dropped onto the floor.

"No." I breathed the word. "No, no, no."

It must have fallen out when I ran. Or when they'd thrown me down. All of that meat, all of that bread, everything I'd saved, and I hadn't even kept it for an hour.

"Damn it." I cursed under my breath, then louder, because I couldn't help it. "I kept it for Noah."

Blade's brows drew together. "Pardon?"

"The food." I couldn't look at him. "I took it off your tray. I wrapped it up and folded it in these." I yanked at the jeans, his jeans, and my face heated. "I saved it for Noah, and now it's gone."

I waited for him to laugh at me. For some cold remark about thieves, or strays.

Instead, his eyebrows rose, slowly and carefully.

"You must have really suffered," he said, "if saving food is the first thing that comes to your mind."

My face scrunched. I didn't like how he'd said it. Quietly, like he'd found a thread I hadn't meant to show, and was deciding whether to pull it.

"It's no big deal ok."

"You shouldn't have to worry about that." His voice had dropped, lower and rougher than before. "There's enough food here. For as long as you live here."

I shrugged. I didn't know what else to do with it honestly.

No one had ever said that to me. Not even once. I turned the words over, looking for the trap, and couldn't find it, and that scared me more than the lock on the door.

Neither of us spoke. My pulse was still racing hard. Something low in my chest kept tugging toward him, the way a rope tugs when someone pulls the other end, and I dug my heels in against it, hard.

Blade studied me for a long moment. Then he asked, almost casually, "Where do you think your brother is right now?"

I straightened and then I lifted my chin.

"Across the river," I said. "The one that splits the borders."