My name is Elowen Grieve, and there is no smell on earth like my mother's kitchen on a Sunday, onions and bread and safety all mixed into one warm breath.
Tavis: Sit down, El. You're making me nervous standing there like a guest.
My father had flour on his apron and the good pot on the stove, and the whole house was warm enough to hurt.
Eamon had the tie out of my hair before I even sat down, like he was twelve again.
Eamon: Look at this. Six months away and she still can't do a decent braid.
Elowen: I can do a braid. I just didn't want one.
Niamh: Sit still. You're thin, Elowen. You're thinner than last month.
Elowen: I'm fine.
My mother's hands moved through my hair like she was checking me for damage, and she was, and we both knew it.
Tavis: I made too much again. Old habit.
Eamon: You made enough for eleven, Da. There's four of us.
Tavis: Then eat like four people who love me.
Then the window was open and the wind came off the road, and it carried something on it. Cedar. Gun oil. Cold air.
Something under my ribs that had been curled up and silent for months sat up and sniffed, and the tightness in my chest let go a little.
Eamon: El? You went somewhere just now.
Elowen: Nowhere. The wind.
I laughed at something my father said and it came out loud. Too loud.
I waited for the room to go quiet and tell me to be smaller, and it didn't. Nobody told me anything.
I had forgotten that was allowed.
Then my phone buzzed on the tablecloth, and I saw the name before I saw anything else.
Eamon: Don't.
Niamh: Elowen.
I pulled my collar up over the scars on my collarbone, one side and then the other, the way I always do before he sees me.
Like if I cover them he can't tell what he did. Like he doesn't already know.
Elowen: Hello.
Maddox: Took you long enough. Where are you.
Elowen: At my parents'. It's Sunday, Maddox.
Maddox: I didn't say you could go to your parents' house.
Maddox: You're supposed to be at my table, and instead you're sitting at your daddy's like some fucking child.
The kitchen had gone quiet. Eamon's chair scraped back and my father turned the burner off slow, and my face was hot while my voice stayed flat and sweet.
Maddox: You come home now. And when you get here we're having a talk about that mouth.
Maddox: You belong to me, Elowen. Say it.
Elowen: I belong to you.
I said it with my braid half done and my family listening, and he hung up on the sound of me being good.
Eamon: Give me the phone. I'll call him back and I'll tell him exactly what I think of him.
Elowen: You'll make it worse.
Eamon: It can't get worse. Look at you.
My mother finished the braid anyway, even though her hands were shaking, and then she kissed the top of my head.
Niamh: You come home. Not to him. Here. You hear me?
Elowen: I know.
I didn't promise her. That was the most honest thing I did all night.
On the porch the evening wind found me a second time, and that same smell rolled over my skin, wood smoke and cold and something solid underneath.
My wolf stirred, quiet as a swallowed word, and I didn't know why it felt like hope instead of fear.
Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's one more thing that ends with me on my knees.
Or maybe it's the first thing I've wanted in a long time that nobody put in my hands.