Chapter 20 #3
I remembered Wolf snarling at me through his sobs, the feel of the hot rooftop beneath my bare feet when I panicked and tried to run, Wolf crashing into me, knocking me to the roof so hard, I couldn’t breathe for a moment, his screaming in my ear, asking me what the fuck I’d done.
And I had no answers because I didn’t fucking know.
I didn’t know. But Dune was dead. He was dead and he was never coming back, and his blood coated my hands and my clothes, and I’d killed him.
“Why would Dune fucking stab himself in the gut?” Wolf roared at me as I sat curled in a tiny ball in the cell that smelled like vomit. “That doesn’t make any sense! I saw you! You stabbed him.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t do it. I was tryin’ to help him.” I was struggling to breathe, I was crying so hard.
“You’re lying.”
I’d never seen him so angry. I’d never seen my oldest brother look at me like he hated me, like he wished I’d been the one to bleed to death on the rooftop.
“Come, Wolf.” Pa’s voice sounded cold and hard as he dragged Wolf away. He wouldn’t even look at me, no matter how much I begged him to. “The council will decide what to do with her.”
Wolf jerked himself free, slamming into the bars so hard, I shrieked. “I don’t understand. Tell me why you did it! Why would you kill him? He loved you!”
“Hey.”
I came back to the present. Trey cupped my face as tears rolled down my cheeks. I tried to duck my head, embarrassed, but he held me still.
“Bones,” he said, “it wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t know that,” I bit out. “You weren’t there.”
“Maybe not,” he said, refusing to let me look away. “But I know you, an’ I’ve seen how far you’ll go when you’re trying to save someone. So I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was—”
“You about killed yourself to heal everybody in the hold from that sickness, even people I know you hate, people who have hurt you. We were fucking abducting you and you still healed me. You saved my life, and you did it ’cause you’re a good person who cares about people.
So no, I don’t think you murdered your brother, Bones.
I think it was a horrible accident, and I’m so sorry you had to go through that. ”
“Stop it,” I snapped at him, shaking my head free.
“Stop what? Stop tryin’ to show you how everyone else sees you? ’Cause no, I’m not gonna stop doin’ that.” He smiled.
I closed my eyes and more tears rolled down my cheeks.
“C’mon. Let’s try and get a few more hours of sleep, okay?”
When he tugged me, I went with him, sliding back into the bedroll and his arms. The wolves started howling again, but they sounded farther away.
I could hear the soothing beat of his heart.
He believed me. He was the first person to believe me about what happened that awful day.
I felt foolish now for thinking he wouldn’t.
Trey had never wavered, despite everything.
You’re a river. You don’t break, you bend.
Well, if I was a roaring river, shifting and unpredictable, Trey was the very mountain beneath us, steady and constant.
—
When I woke up in the morning, I was toasty warm entangled with Trey inside the bedroll. Only my nose felt numb with cold. Our fire had died to glowing coals, but we needed to get moving anyway. His eyes blinked open, frost coating his long lashes, and he smiled that sweet, warm smile.
“You’re still here,” he murmured.
I slid my hands up his chest to twine around his neck, watching his pupils expand in surprise. When I stretched up to kiss him, his arms tightened around me, his lips meeting mine. Kissing him was addictive. I didn’t want to stop. Gods, I was so fucked.
I forced myself to pull away after a few minutes. “C’mon, we better get moving,” I whispered.
We packed up our small campsite and buried our fire in the snow in case anybody tracked us here. I knew they would be tracking us eventually, and I hoped we’d be long gone by then. When we resumed walking, Trey grabbed my hand with a grin. My gaze flicked to our joined hands and then up to him.
“So, you and me, we’re a thing now, right?” he asked.
“Depends. What’s ‘a thing’ mean?”
“Means you’re mine and I’m yours. We don’t make love with anybody else.”
“Make love,” I repeated, amused, but I couldn’t deny that was exactly what he’d done last night.
He gave me a playful glare. “It also means I get to take care of you. No more ‘I’m fine’ shit.”
“What if I am fine?”
“Okay, smartass, you can say you’re fine if you’re actually fine. I mean no lying. It means that I get all of you and you get all of me. The good and the bad. It means I’ll always have your back. No matter what.”
Blooms filled my chest again. “Do I get to kiss you whenever I want?”
He grinned, delighted. “You sure do.”
“I’ll think about it.”
His outraged face made me burst out laughing, and he lit up. “Gods, I love your laugh.” He pulled me close, eyes dancing as I tripped over both our snowshoes.
“I guess if we’re gonna be a thing, you get to hear me laugh.” I grinned.
“It’d be an honor, darlin’.”
When he kissed me, the warmth that ran through me felt as pure and golden as my healing powers.