Chapter 2

But when the bond-thirst passed, he turned on me again.

"Last night the thirst forced me. Remember that. It wasn't what I wanted."

I was still a moment. I pulled the quilt up over myself.

Looking at him, he meant it.

He meant that he didn't want me.

"I know."

That startled him. He turned his face away and didn't make a sound.

But Cael's body didn't take orders from him.

However much he hated me in the daylight, when the moon was full he still climbed through the window, good as anything.

And I was hopeless.

Every time I saw him burning and pitiful, I forgave him. Again and again.

The household at the main house learned fast to serve by the moon.

When the moon was rounding, hot soup, cool cloths, calming incense, sent into his room in a stream. When the moon fell, they carried every bit of it back to my west room.

The pair of pillows my mother gave me when I married never spent a night on the same bed in three years.

Later, after enough days, he seemed to have thought it through. He came even when it wasn't the full moon. He came, and he stayed, and he didn't leave until daylight.

Once, burned out of his sense, he caught my wrist in his mouth.

Not hard. The canines just broke the skin. A pale ring of teeth.

At dawn he stared at that ring for a long time. His face went red, then white. In the end he threw down the ointment and left, and he didn't speak to me for three days.

On the fourth day he came back himself. The first thing out of his mouth was, "Does it still hurt?"

"You bit me," I said. "And you're asking me?"

He turned his face aside. The roots of his ears were red.

He said it was my duty, as his wife.

I didn't argue.

But every time he had me, he asked the same thing.

"The wolf who bit you. Who is he?"

I had no mind for that.

"It was you." I looked him in the face. "Really. Only you."

"Me?"

Cael caught my chin. The smile didn't go either way.

"My wife's heart is a cold thing. Three years married, and you still won't give up that wild wolf."

I felt wronged to the bone.

Had he forgotten, or was he refusing to own it, and finding new ways to shame me?

"Cael. Four years ago. Do you truly not remember any of it? The storm. The herb shed. A silver bolt in your leg. You were burning and talking nonsense, and you wouldn't let go of my herb basket—"

"I was never shot with a silver bolt."

One word at a time.

"I do have a silver scar. On my shoulder. From hunting a rabid wolf when I was a child. Look carefully. It's on the shoulder. Not the leg."

He pulled his collar open for me. High on the left shoulder, near the neck, a pale old scar.

I knew that scar. I'd seen it when he bathed. He feared silver. I never let my silver ring come near him.

And what did that prove?

After enough days of it, I got tired of being asked, and I stopped answering.

Silence would have been better. When I didn't answer, he got worse.

Sometimes through his teeth.

"I wanted someone with a clean heart, to live out a life with. And you ruined me."

Sometimes he gave up on himself.

"Leave me alone. Let the thirst kill me. When I'm dead, you can go find that wolf and pick up where you left off."

Sometimes he saw ghosts in every corner.

"Who is it? A guard in the pack? A wolf on the border patrol? Or the one who sells wine in Graywater? You keep running into town. Tell me. Why won't you say it?"

Go on like that, and one of us was going to lose his mind first.

At last I couldn't bear it.

"If that's how it is, we break it."

The man who had been raving went quiet all at once.

"What did you say? Break it?"

Cael stared at me. The rims of his eyes reddened by degrees.

"You want to break with me. You want me to die?"

Only then did I remember.

His bond was on me.

If I left, there would be no one left to ease his thirst.

The words were out. I couldn't take them back. I was trying to find a way to mend it when he put a finger on my mouth, as if he was terrified.

"I was wrong."

His head dropped. His voice went very low, as if the words shamed him.

"I won't ask again. Don't break with me."

"Please."

I had nothing to say.

I even pitied him.

Aside from the memory, I couldn't find another fault in him.

After that day he was quiet for several days. Then, no telling which nerve had crossed, he caught me in the night and wouldn't let go.

"Willa. Let's have a pup."

I didn't think his reason for wanting a pup was clean.

"Your sickness can't do without me. When would I have time to have a pup?"

Cael came in and kissed me.

"It's nothing. A few months of carrying. I can endure it."

"While the sickness is still light. Wait a few more years and I won't be able to."

I was still hesitating. He nosed in at my ear and went aggrieved.

"Willa. I've stayed clean for you. Can't you give me anything?"