The Alpha door was tall and black, and Linnea's cheek still stung where her mother's ring had opened it.
She put her hand on the cold wood. The yard had gone quiet behind her, and that was worse than noise.
Verity: Stop.
Verity: You don't walk into my house first. You wait until I say.
Verity came down the steps slowly, like she had all night.
Verity: Look around. Every one of them watched your own mother sell you.
Verity: By morning they won't see you at all.
Verity: In my house you carry water. You scrub. You keep to the back stairs.
Verity: You will be invisible. That is the only mercy you get from me.
Torren stood at the gate with his hands behind his back.
He did not look at her. He looked past her, out at the black lake.
Torren: Out of sight. That's all I asked for.
Someone in the pack laughed, and it spread through the yard until it was loud.
The bond pulled at her chest anyway, warm and stupid, reaching for a man who would not turn his head.
Her face burned in the wind. Her mother's scratch, the debt, the paper with her name on it, all of it sat on her skin.
For one breath she wanted to be invisible. It would hurt less than this.
A warm hand closed over hers in the dark.
Jessa: I'm here. Don't say anything. Just get inside where it's warm.
Gratitude came up so fast her eyes stung.
Verity: Do you understand what I'm giving you?
Verity: A corner by the fire. A bowl at the end of the night. A name nobody will say.
Linnea lifted her head.
She looked Verity in the eye, and she did not blink.
Linnea: I will still be here.
Linnea: Put me on the back stairs. Make me a bucket and a rag. I will still be here.
The yard went quiet. Snow turned in the wind between them.
Verity's smile stayed, but it went thin at the corners.
Torren: Enough.
His voice was flat, but his jaw was tight.
Torren: Get her inside before the pack has to look at her all night.
Verity: Say it again tomorrow, when your hands are cracked and nobody brings you water.
Verity: The men will be drunk by midnight. Keep to the back stairs and they won't find you.
Verity: We'll see how loud you are then.
Jessa squeezed her fingers once, hard.
Jessa: Healer's door. Every night. I'll leave it unlatched.
Jessa: You're not alone in there.
Linnea stepped through the black door into a hall that smelled of ash and old water.
Behind her, the door shut out the yard, the pack, and the man she could still feel in her chest.
Let them look past her. She would still be standing when they finally looked.