Chapter 20: She Has Changed

 

Mabel was waiting outside the hotel entrance on the low stone wall, her bright orange hair visible from halfway down the block. She had two paper cups ready and held one out the moment she saw Briar's face.

Briar took it. Her hand was shaking badly enough that the cup tilted and some of the coffee ran down her fingers and she did not notice.

"Hey." Mabel was on her feet immediately. "Hey, what happened. Are you hurt?"

"No." Briar's voice came out wrong, too high and too thin. "No, I'm not hurt. I just." She looked at her own hand. "I hit her. I actually hit her. In front of everyone. What did I do, Mabel, what did I just do."

"Sit down," Mabel said.

"I hit Vivienne. Killian's fated mate. In front of his whole family. At his sister's birthday party that I wasn't even supposed to be at." She sat down on the wall because her legs were not entirely cooperating. "What is wrong with me. I keep making everything worse. Every single time I open my mouth something terrible happens and I think this time will be different and it's never different."

"Briar." Mabel took the tilting cup from her before it spilled entirely. "Tell me what happened. From the beginning."

So Briar told her, in the stumbling, out-of-order way. The crushed gift box. Eliza's heel. The things Vivienne had said when she thought she was being helpful, and then the things she had said when she stopped pretending. The slap.

When she finished she pressed both hands over her face and sat very still.

"Good," Mabel said.

Briar lowered her hands. "What?"

"I said good." Mabel's voice was very clear. "You named specific incidents in order. You had evidence. You didn't let her redirect you or make you feel like you were imagining things." She paused. "And then you hit her, which she had coming, and you walked out." She looked at Briar steadily. "Do you understand what that is? That is not making things worse. That is the first time in three years you have walked out of a room on your own terms."

Briar stared at her.

"Three months ago," Mabel said, "you would have apologized to her for making her face hurt."

Briar thought about this for a long moment. The shaking in her hands was slowing down.

"The speech was good," she said, very quietly. "I remembered all of it."

"The speech was excellent."

"I said the earrings were two dollars."

"You did."

Something loosened in Briar's chest.

Mabel handed her the coffee back and did not say anything, which was exactly right.

After a while Briar wiped her face and said, "I made things worse with Eliza."

"Yes," Mabel said.

"She hates me more now."

"She does."

"And we needed her. For the compound." Briar pressed her lips together. "We're stuck."

"Not necessarily. But it's harder." Mabel looked at the street. "We'll figure something out. We always do."

A car pulled up. Liam got out, read both their faces in the efficient way he had, and said, "I heard there was a slap."

"There was a slap," Mabel confirmed.

"Good." He sat on the wall on Briar's other side and reached into his jacket. "I have some things for you."

He put an envelope in her hands. Resignation letter, already submitted, her name on it, effective immediately. She did not have to go back to the canteen.

Then a second envelope. Travel documents. Passport. Pack exit permit. Inter-territory clearance.

Briar held them both and felt a door she had not known was there swing open somewhere inside her.

"Why are you doing all of this," she said.

Liam looked at the street. "Because someone should have done it a long time ago."

Briar's throat tightened. "I'm hungry," she said, because she was not going to cry a third time. "Can we go somewhere. I haven't eaten since this morning."

"Convenience store on the main road," Mabel said.

---

Killian watched her walk out through the hotel lobby doors.

She did not look back. The doors settled shut and she was gone and he stood where he was with his drink in his hand and a sensation in his chest that had no clean name.

He put the drink down and left.

Outside he walked three blocks without deciding to and stopped on a side street and felt Fenris pressing at the edges of him the way his wolf did when something had been wrong too long.

He shifted. He ran.

The city fell away and he ran until the cold air was working properly through him and his head was clearer.

*She has changed,* Fenris said.

Killian kept running. *She hit someone and made a speech. That is not changed.*

*Three months ago she would have cried on the floor,* Fenris said. *Tonight she named things in order and she walked out.*

*It doesn't matter.*

*You watched her,* Fenris said. *The whole time. You didn't move.*

*I was observing a situation.*

*She doesn't matter,* Killian said. *She is a bond obligation.*

Fenris said nothing.

Killian ran harder. He did not want to follow this line of thought to where it was going.

He crested the ridge and shifted back and dressed and started walking.

He was coming down the main road when he saw the car.

Liam's car outside a convenience store, engine running. Liam getting out and coming around to the passenger side, opening the door, and Briar stepping out. Liam's hand came up near the back of her head as she ducked under the doorframe, not touching, just there. A gesture that came from knowing her. From paying attention to her over a long period of time.

They were talking. Briar said something. Liam laughed.

She laughed too.

Killian stopped on the pavement across the road and stood very still.

*There he is,* Fenris said. The bitterness in it was immediate. *Always there. She laughs with him. She lets him carry things. She is supposed to be home and instead she is standing outside a convenience store in the dark laughing with my beta.*

*Our beta,* Killian said.

*He is in my space,* Fenris said. *She is my space. Every time I see him near her I want to put him through a wall and I am running out of reasons not to.*

Killian opened the mindlink anyway.

[Liam. Eastern border rotation starts Monday. Your unit is assigned the full four-week stint. I need you there personally.]

A pause from Liam's end. Brief and readable. [Understood.]

[Your father's distribution contract comes up next month,] Killian said. [I've asked Gideon to review the terms. There may be changes.]

A longer pause. [Also understood.]

Through the store window he could see Briar standing at a snack display with a basket over her arm, picking things up and reading labels with the focused look she gave to things she had decided mattered. She turned the package over. Put it back. Picked up another one.

*You are punishing Liam,* Fenris said. His voice in Killian's head was low and not approving. *Because he opened a car door.*

*I'm managing pack resources.*

*You are jealous,* Fenris said. *Say it correctly.*

Killian said nothing.

*And she is still not home,* Fenris continued. *That is the part you are not addressing. You send Liam to the border and she is still not in the house. She is still not answering the link. Her things are still gone. You cannot punish her back into the bedroom, Killian. It doesn't work like that.*

*She is carrying out a bond obligation. She needs to*

*Stop,* Fenris said, with a sharpness that cut through everything else. *I am not interested in the prophecy right now. I am telling you that she is leaving and I do not like it. I do not function correctly when she is not near. I have not functioned correctly in weeks. Every night the bed is wrong and every morning the house is wrong and I am tired of it.*

Killian watched through the glass as Briar put several things in her basket and moved toward the counter. Liam was standing near the door waiting for her, not crowding her, just there.

*She used to rustle those candy wrappers at night,* Fenris said. *Under the pillow. It was annoying.*

*Yes.*

*I miss it.*

Killian did not answer.

Briar came out of the store with a bag in one arm and a small container of something she was already eating from. She said something to Liam. He took the bag from her. She let him.

Liam opened the car door. The same careful gesture near the back of her head.

She got in.

The notification arrived in Killian's link as the car pulled away. Her resignation, processed and confirmed. Effective immediately. Briar Thorne was no longer an employee of Vane Sterling.

Fenris made a sound deep in Killian's chest that was not quite anger and not quite grief and was worse than either.

*She is ours! * Fenris said. *She has always been ours! I do not care about ugly or graceless or stupid. Those were never the real things. She is ours and she is walking away and the house is empty and I cannot stand it and you are standing outside a convenience store in the cold watching her leave!! *

The car turned the corner and disappeared.

Killian stood on the empty pavement in the cold and said nothing.

Fenris burned at the back of his mind, low and continuous, and did not stop.