Mavis set the clay cup in my hands and took herself off to the passage bench. I stayed where I was, breathing ink and cold ash, and my fingers would not stop trembling.
Then his boots went past the door toward the hall, and I got up and followed them.
The hall was still full. He had gone back to his seat like nothing had happened, and she was in my chair with her hand on his arm.
I crossed the floor between the tables, every eye on me, and came to a stop at the head table with my heart slamming.
Avery: Get a rider out tonight. To the next town. His fever has moved into his chest, Mavis says so.
Caelan: I already told you no.
Avery: Then tell me what it costs. I will pay it out of my own hands.
He set his cup down and looked at me like I was a dog that had barked at the wrong time.
Caelan: Your brother's care comes from my hand. Your wolf answers to my word.
Caelan: You couldn't leave this town if you tried, so stop demanding things like a woman with a purse.
Avery: Two years. I kept your books and your house for two years.
Caelan: It is what you signed for. You are a debt wife with a bitch's mouth, and your body is mine to use.
Somebody at the back laughed, and that sound broke me worse than his voice did.
Torin: Caelan. That is enough. She is your wife.
Caelan: She answers to me. Try me again and Niall leaves that sickbed tonight.
The threat landed in my chest and stayed there. He was not bluffing.
Caelan: Now get out of my hall before I have you carried out.
I went. My face was burning and my eyes were hot, and I did not let one tear fall until I was through the door.
I made it to the ledger room and leaned on the door with both palms flat, dragging air in through my nose.
Then the door pushed against me, and he pushed with it.
His hand came up and took my jaw, hard enough to grind my teeth, and his nails dug in until I felt the skin give.
Caelan: Say one more word about that boy in front of my pack, and he goes out to the pans. Nobody lasts long in that cold, and his blood will be on your tongue.
I believed him. That was the part that scared me, how easy it was to believe him.
Then his mouth was on mine, hard and taking, his fingers still biting into my jaw.
I answered him. My fingers dug into his coat and hauled him closer, and I hated the hunger that rose up in me.
He walked me back until the table edge hit my hips, and my hand came down on the binding ledger.
Caelan: You fight me all night and then you melt. What does that make you?
Caelan: Mine.
His hand went under my dress and up my thigh, and his fingers found my pussy wet through the cotton.
Caelan: Look at that. All that mouth, and this is what you wanted.
His cock was hard against my hip, even through the wool of his trousers.
He pushed two fingers inside me and dragged them out slow, and my knees went. His thumb found my clit and pressed.
Avery: Caelan. Please.
Caelan: Please what? Say you are mine, all of it, and I will send a rider at dawn.
Avery: I am yours. I am yours, just send him.
Caelan: Good girl.
I came on his hand with my forehead on his shoulder and my fist on the binding ledger, and for one second there was nothing in me but heat and shame.
Caelan: I will think about the rider.
Avery: You said at dawn.
Caelan: I said I would think about it. Do not push me tonight.
He left. The door clicked shut, and I stood there with my dress still up and my body still warm and stupid for him.
Then I sat down and pulled the binding ledger across the table.
Two years I had signed it and never read past the first page, because I thought loving him was the same as trusting him.
I turned past the salt accounts to the page with my name at the top.
Avery: Bound until the Alpha's word releases her.
That was all. Not a marriage. A debt with my name in his book, and his choice alone on the other side of it.
Two years of my life, and the only door out had his hand on it.
He had given my keys away in front of the whole pack, and even then some weak piece of me had still been reaching for him.
But I was done waiting for a man who never once looked at me and saw a person.
If I wanted free of him, I was going to have to make him feel what losing me would cost.