All Chapters of Married To My Enemy's Pack : Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

I did not sleep that night. I sat on the attic stairs with my back against the wall, listening to the street, and the old woman sat in her chair below with a blanket over her knees, pretending to doze. But neither of us fooled the other.Around midnight, the engine of the parked car turned over. Then I crept to the upstairs window and watched through the gap in the boards as it rolled slowly away, its taillights shrinking down the length of the row until the dark swallowed them."They're gone," I called softly."Gone from the street," the old woman answered from below. "Not from the city, come down."I came down. And this time she was sitting very straight, with her hands pressed flat on her knees, and she coughed twice into a handkerchief before she spoke. When she lowered it, I saw a dark stain on the cloth, and she folded it away quickly, as though that could hide it."You're sick," I said."I am old. Those are the same thing, only one is polite." She tilted her head toward me. "Th

I read the last line a third time, as though the words might rearrange themselves into something I could bear. Silver-haired, a council elder, and very kind to the children."Selene," The old woman's grip on my wrist tightened. "Breathe, you are shaking the page apart.""I'm fine""No, you are not, and that is allowed." She eased herself down onto the floor beside the open hole in the boards, and I knelt next to her, still clutching the brittle paper. "Tell me what you are thinking and say it out loud because thoughts left unspoken grow teeth.""I'm thinking about a man I met in Damian's study," I said slowly. "He gave me a card. He told me to come to him if I ever had questions. He also asked about a lullaby I hummed, and he said he had not heard the tune in a very long time.""What lullaby?" She asked.Then I hummed it softly, the few notes I had carried since I was small. Immediately, the old woman's face crumpled, and she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth."Your mother sang th

"Where have you been?" Damian asked. His voice was low and flat, with none of the heat I had braced for."Walking," I said. "I needed to be somewhere nobody knew me. And I'm sorry I left without a word."His eyes moved over my face, then to the gray wool coat I wore, which was plainly not mine. "Who owns that?" He asked."A woman let me borrow it because the nights were cold." It was the old woman's lesson, choosing the order of true things, and it sat badly in my mouth. "I didn't take anything from anyone, and nobody hurt me."He nodded once, as if he was filing the answer away for later. "Eight days," he said. "Ryder searched every shelter between here and Newark. You even turned your phone off, so there was nothing to trace.""I know.""We'll talk tomorrow. You're cold and you haven't eaten." He then stepped aside, giving me a clear path to the doors. "Go in."I climbed the steps beside him without touching him. He did not reach for me, and I did not expect it. Whatever had broken

Damian did not answer right away. He just stood in front of me with his arms folded, looking at the cold cup of tea as if it might explain itself."Kayla," he said at last. "Give us a minute.""No, I'd rather stay," she said."I know, but please," Damian replied.Then she glanced at me. I nodded, and she went out, pulling the door nearly shut behind her. Damian waited until her footsteps faded."Say it again," he said. "Exactly what he said about the coat.""He said that the guard at the gate remarked on it. That it looked old." I said."And you told no one where you got it," Damian asked."No one at all, I only told you a woman lent it to me. And that's all I told everyone else.""Then we should ask the guard." He said, crossing to the doorway and calling down the hall. "Ryder, bring the man who was at the gate yesterday morning."Ryder arrived with him a few minutes later. The guard was young, broad-shouldered, and plainly nervous. He stood at attention in the middle of the sitting

Damian's question hung in the study long after Ryder finished speaking. And nobody answered it, because every answer we had led to the same name, and none of us was ready to say it out loud."Send the guard food," Damian said at last. "Nothing else, and tell no one he's been questioned.""Understood," Ryder paused at the door. "He asked whether his family would be punished.""Tell him I don't punish children for their father's mistakes." Damian rubbed his temple. "Go."Ryder left, and Damian turned to me. "A week, and I meant it. But I'll ask you one thing now, so I'm not guessing for the week you asked for. Do you believe the Elder is a danger to you?""I believe he's very interested in me," I said carefully. "And I don't know why.""That isn't what I asked," Damian said."It's what I can honestly say right now," I responded.He studied me for a moment, then gave a short nod and let it go. I took that as a small mercy and went back to my room.The next morning, I asked Kayla to walk