Terms

You don't take his hand.

You look at it for a long second, that big open palm with an iron signet ring on the smallest finger, and you think about how easy it would be. How good it would feel to walk out of here on the arm of the most beautiful man anyone in Hollow Creek has ever seen, with Easton white-faced on the stage behind you.

But it would still be someone else's choice wearing your name.

"Thank you," you say. Your voice comes out steadier than you expected. "I'm going to walk out of here on my own now."

Something moves in his face. Not offense. Something closer to respect.

"Good," he says, and steps aside.

You walk the length of the pavilion. Two hundred wolves watch you go and not one of them laughs. You can feel the King behind you, not following, just watching, like a wall at your back. Signe's voice cracks across the room, calling her brother a word that makes the elders gasp. Then the pavilion doors close behind you and there's only the cold and the creek.

You make it to the bridge before your knees start shaking.

You grip the railing. The creek is black and loud underneath, full of fallen leaves. The bond in your chest is a raw, frayed thing, still attached at one end and bleeding at the other. You press a fist against your sternum like that will help.

Gravel crunches behind you. Slowly. Loudly. On purpose, so you'll hear him coming.

He stops a good ten feet away, at the end of the bridge, hands in his coat pockets. Under the Harvest Moon he looks even less real. The light catches the scar through his eyebrow.

"I'll go if you want," he says. "I'll stand here if you'd rather not be alone. Those are the only two things I'm offering right now."

You laugh, and it hurts. "You're the Lycan King."

"Yes."

"You just walked into a pack ceremony and called a bookkeeper your mate in front of everybody."

"Yes." He considers. "I'd do it again. I'd do it louder."

"Why?"

He's quiet a moment. When he speaks, his voice is rougher. "Because it's true. I knew the second I walked in. It hit me like weather." He looks at the pavilion, at the warm light leaking around the door. "And because I've heard what he said to you before. Different words. Same sentence. I've never once let it stand."

You don't know what to do with that. You turn back to the creek.

"Here's what I want to offer," he says. "And you can say no to all of it. Ironmere is four hours north. The Forge House has more rooms than I'll ever use. Come as my guest. Not my mate, not my anything, not until you say so. Your own rooms. Your own key. A car if you want one, so you're never waiting on me to leave. If you hate it, you go home the next day and I'll pay the gas."

"And the bond?"

"Is yours to decide about." He holds your gaze. "I won't touch it. I won't push it. I'm too old to pretend I don't want it, but wanting isn't a vote."

Your phone buzzes in your coat pocket.

You pull it out, grateful for something to do with your hands. It's a text from Vernon Aldrich, who has never once texted you in six years of you keeping the creamery's books.

In light of tonight's events, the co-op board feels a fresh start would be best for everyone. Your position as bookkeeper is terminated effective immediately. Please leave your office keys with Paisley. Blessings, V.

You read it twice. Then you laugh again, a short ugly sound.

"What," says the King.

You turn the screen toward him. He crosses the ten feet in three strides, reads it, and his jaw goes tight enough that a muscle jumps under the beard. His eyes flick silver, just for a breath, and then back to gray.

"Blessings," he says flatly.

"He'll give my job to his nephew. His nephew thinks a spreadsheet is a kind of bedding."

He makes a low sound that might be a laugh. Then he steps back again, the full ten feet, like he's putting you back in charge of the distance.

"Think about it," he says. "I'm leaving at dawn. Koski will be at the Kwik Trip with the truck at six. If you're there, you're there."

He walks away up the gravel road toward town. He doesn't look back once, which is somehow the most persuasive thing he's done all night.

Aunt Margery is still awake when you get home, sitting at her kitchen table above the Pine Room in her red lipstick and her bathrobe, a brandy old fashioned sweating in front of her. She's already heard. Everyone's already heard. Hollow Creek has one main street and four hundred phones.

She stands up and pulls you into her arms without a word, and that's when you finally cry.

"That boy," she says into your hair, "was never good enough to carry your purse."

"He said it in front of everyone."

"I know, honey."

"And then the King..."

"I know that too. Velma Szalay called me before you were off the bridge." Margery pulls back and holds your face in both hands. Her eyes are wet and furious. "Are you going?"

"I don't know. I lost my job an hour ago."

"Then you've got nothing keeping you here but me, and I'm a grown woman with a liquor license." She wipes your cheek with her thumb. "Your mother would have been on that truck before he finished the sentence. Go north, Ava. See what it's like to be looked at right."

You go to bed at midnight. You don't sleep. You pack a duffel bag at one and unpack it at one-thirty and pack it again at quarter to two.

At two, someone knocks on the back door.

You know the knock. You've heard it all summer.

You open the door with the chain still on. Easton is on the porch in the dark, no coat, his shirt untucked. He looks terrible. His skin is gray, his eyes are too bright, and he's shaking like a man with a fever.

"Don't go with him," he says. "Please. Ava, please."

"You rejected me on a stage, Easton."

"I know." His voice breaks. "I know what I did. You don't understand. You don't know what you are to me."

"Then tell me."

He opens his mouth. Closes it. His eyes go wolf-gold, flickering, wrong.

"I can't," he whispers. "Not yet."

And he's gone, down the porch steps and into the trees. You stand at the door with your heart slamming until you look down at the porch railing.

Four long gouges, fresh and splintered, torn into the wood where his hand was.