The hall door bangs shut behind me and my legs go stupid, so I put my back against the wall and slide down until the stones stop moving.
My wrist is on fire where he held it, and the cold air off the river is not helping one bit.
There are four red bars on my skin and the shape of his thumb pressed in like a brand.
By morning it will be purple. By morning the whole market will see it and I will have to lie about it.
Boots scrape on the stones around the corner, and I know that laugh before I even see the face that goes with it.
Coburn: Well, look at this. Trudie's little bitch is hiding behind the hall with her tail between her legs.
Coburn: What's the matter, Fenna? Alpha wouldn't let you mop his boots tonight?
One of his friends steps in front of me so I have to stop short, and his hand closes around my arm hard enough to make me hiss.
Coburn: Careful, lads. She bites. Or she would, if she had the guts.
He shakes my arm like he is testing a rope, and I wrench it back so hard my shoulder pops. Shit, that hurts.
Pella: Get your fucking hands off her, Coburn.
Pella comes round the corner with her apron still on and her fists already up, and she plants herself in front of me like a wall.
Coburn: Relax, Pella. I'm only playing.
Pella: Play with yourself. Touch her again and I'll tell Fergus, and you know what he'll do to your hands.
Coburn spits on the stones and goes, but he looks back at me once and grins like he is saving something up for later.
The second they are gone my knees start knocking together and I cannot make them stop.
Pella: Fenna. Hey. Look at me, not at the ground.
Pella: Your wrist. Who did that? Because Coburn is not strong enough to leave marks like that.
I open my mouth to say I fell, because that is my lie and it always works, and it sticks in my throat like a fish bone.
Fenna: The Alpha. In the hall. Over the crates.
Pella: Kester? Kester did that to you?
Pella goes quiet, and quiet is not a thing she does, so I know it is bad.
Pella: Bastard. Right. Listen to me and don't you dare cry, because if you cry then I'll start.
Pella: That man destroys what he touches. He doesn't mean to do it. He just does.
Pella: Tove was his first wife. She was loud and funny and alive, and then she was his, and then she was dead.
Pella: He has been walking about like a locked door ever since, and everything that gets close to him comes out wrecked.
Pella: So whatever you felt in that hall, put it in a box and bury it deep. Please.
My wolf hears that and howls inside my chest, because she knows exactly what I felt and she will not go in any box.
From Pella's side: I smell Fergus before I see him, all leather and cold river, and my stupid heart turns right over.
I keep my eyes on Fenna's arm so he cannot see how red my face has gone.
Fergus comes round the corner holding my coat, the one I left in the hall like a fool, and he stops dead when he sees the two of us.
Fergus: Pella. You all right?
Pella: I'm fine. She's not.
He settles the coat on my shoulders and his knuckles brush the side of my neck, and I feel it all the way down to my boots.
Fergus: That's a handprint. The Alpha did that?
Fenna: It's nothing. It doesn't even hurt.
Fergus: That's a lie and you both know it. Nobody in this pack puts hands on a woman and gets to call it nothing.
Fergus: Pella, walk her home the long way round. I'll follow behind and keep out of sight.
Fenna: No. If Trudie sees me with a guard she'll make me pay for it twice.
Pella takes my face in both hands, and her palms smell like bread and she looks at me like I am worth something.
Pella: Then I'll come to the reed shed tomorrow. And the day after that. You are not alone, do you hear me?
I want to believe her so much that my throat aches.
Then the hall door bangs and Trudie's voice cuts across the yard, and it is my name in her mouth like a curse.
Trudie: Fenna! Where's that useless girl got to?
I pull my sleeve down over the purple and walk out into the light with a mate who wants me gone and a lie already on my tongue.