I'm still picking splinters out of my fingers when I hear boots on the boards outside the reed shed.
My lip is tight and sore, and I have not slept one wink, because my wolf would not shut up all night.
Trudie: Get up, you lucky little bitch.
Trudie: The Alpha wants you at the pack circle. Right now, in front of everyone.
Fenna: What? Why would he want me? He told the whole hall I was your problem, not his.
Trudie: How the fuck should I know? Maybe he's decided to throw you out of my house for good.
Her nails dig in through my shawl, and the purple handprint on my wrist wakes up all over again.
Trudie: You make a fool of me out there and I'll bolt that cellar door behind you myself.
Trudie: Two tides with nothing in your belly, and Coburn gets his turn before I let you out.
She marches me across the yard with her hand still clamped on my arm, and every wolf we pass stops dead and stares.
I keep my eyes down, but I can feel every single one of them looking at my lip.
Coburn: Look at that. The burden's got an audience.
Coburn: Bet he's going to make her beg on her knees in front of everyone. I'd pay coin to watch that.
The laughing hits the back of my neck like hot water, and I hate that my ears go red.
Then Pella shoves her way out of the crowd, flour still on her apron, and the blood has gone right out of her cheeks.
Pella: Fenna. I came the second Fergus told me.
Pella: Breathe. You look like you're about to go down in the dirt.
She takes my hand and squeezes it, hard, the way she did when we were small and Trudie was screaming.
Pella: Whatever happens in there, I'm right here and I'm not moving.
Pella: An Alpha doesn't drag a wolf into that sand unless he's got a word to say over her. So hold your head up.
Fenna: You think he means to claim me? Truly?
Pella: Why else would he drag you out in front of everybody?
Pella: He felt it. I saw his face over those crates. He felt it.
My wolf lifts her head inside my chest for the first time in days, and her voice is small and sure.
He is waiting. He wants us. Go to him.
The circle is a ring of packed sand with the river at its back and the whole pack crowding the edges.
Every face I know is standing there, and not one of them looks at me like I'm a person.
Then I see him across the sand, and my whole stupid body goes hot and then cold.
He doesn't smile. His jaw is set so hard it looks carved, and his fists are shut at his sides.
From Kester's side: his wolf has been screaming her name since dawn, and he has not slept either.
He watches her small thin shape cross the sand and something in him remembers wet red hair and a grave that never should have been dug so early.
His whole chest goes hard as iron, and the thought comes up ugly and fast. Not again. I won't watch it happen again.
Fergus: They're all waiting, Alpha. Whatever you're going to say, say it now.
Kester: I know what I have to do. Doesn't mean I can fucking do it.
Trudie shoves me onto the sand so hard I stumble, and the whole circle laughs.
Trudie: Stand up straight and keep your mouth shut, you little bitch. Not one word.
Kester: Fenna. Come here.
That one word rolls over me and my knees go weak under my dress, like my bones heard him before my ears did.
The pack goes so quiet I can hear the river moving behind them.
I walk toward him with my heart slamming and my wolf howling, and I think, he's going to claim me.
He's going to say it out loud in front of every wolf in this pack, and I won't be a burden anymore.
My lip is split and my wrist is purple and I don't care. Let them all see it.
Kester lifts his hand and holds it out over the sand between us, and the whole pack holds its breath.
I lift mine to meet it, and a small stupid voice in my head says, finally. Finally.