Chapter 11

"You were gentle. You laughed. I didn't want to interrupt you. I apologize for not correcting it."

I didn't know what to do with my face.

A waiter came by with a flyer. "Couples' pick-your-own-lobster weekend, sir. Free course for pairs. The cold room is just through that door."

"I'm not —" I began.

"We'll do it," Ryder said, smooth as silk.

"Ryder —"

"Pretending to be a pair and being a pair are not that different in practice, Elara. Indulge me." He stood and offered his elbow. "Come pick us a lobster."

I followed him, protesting under my breath. He held the cold-room door open. I stepped past him into the white fog of industrial chill.

Behind us, the door slammed. The bolt clicked.

Ryder tested the handle once, calmly. It did not move. He pulled his phone out. No bars. "Somebody's work," he said, and his voice had gone low and flat. "Not mine."

"Elara. Breathe. My Enforcers check in with me every thirty minutes. They'll come."

I nodded. My breath made little puffs of white. The cold bit through my coat. My ribs started to tighten the way they always did in small rooms. The Pack Asylum basement. The manor cellar. The first weeks after Nora. Every locked, cold space I had ever been shoved into came rushing back at once.

I slid down against a crate of ice. I wrapped my arms around my knees. The shaking started. "I'm sorry. Nora. I'm sorry, pups. I'm sorry —"

"Elara —"

"I'm sorry I couldn't keep any of you —"

He was on one knee in front of me in the next second. He shrugged his coat off and draped it over my shoulders and tucked it carefully around my arms. He did not touch me otherwise. He spoke very low. "You're safe. Nobody is going to hit you. I'm right here."

I heard him. I saw children's faces behind my eyes. I saw Nora crawling up out of the dark. My mouth kept moving. I tried to push the coat back at him. "You need —"

Black came up over my vision like a curtain.

I woke under hospital light. Ryder was sitting beside the bed. A fresh bandage wrapped his forearm. He caught me looking. "A scratch. The Enforcers broke in with an axe. I got in the way a little."

"I'm sorry —"

"Stop apologizing, Elara."

The Healer came through and gave me a gentle Mind-Link report. Old fracture lines in the ribs. Scar tissue along the hips. Multiple terminated pregnancies. Ryder stood at the window while the Healer spoke. His jaw worked. He did not ask.

When we were alone he came back to the bed. "Elara. Who's Nora?"

I looked at the ceiling. It took me a long moment. "My daughter," I said. "She died."

Ryder went very still. I watched something shift behind his eyes — he was an honorable Alpha, and I had just told him I was somebody's estranged Mate with a dead pup. "You have a Mate," he said carefully. "I was about to ask you to let me court you. I was planning to be — imaginative about it."

"He's not my Mate anymore." I laid the words out plain. "I Severed the Bond. He killed Nora. I left. The paperwork is through the Council."

He exhaled. "Moon. I was about to make myself a problem."

"I was going to let you." A half-smile.

"Then I'll ask properly, Elara. Let me court you. I'm not asking for anything you don't want to give. I'm asking for a chance to love you."

"I've only seen you twice."

"Three times, counting the hospital. I can be patient." His voice dropped. "But I'll be honest. I think you're mine. I've thought so since the café."

In the days after I was discharged he didn't crowd me. He picked me up in the morning for slow walks. He read to me in the afternoon when my headaches were bad. He hid our outings from Celeste, who found out anyway and laughed herself sick. He held my hand through the Healer appointments. He never asked for the story. He waited.

One afternoon I took him to the little garden behind Celeste's house. Under the maple I had set a small empty grave for Nora — no body, since Damon had given her to the Rogues, but a name carved in stone. Ryder held my hand so tightly my fingers went numb.

"Ryder. Why do you like me?"

"Because you survived."

"I didn't. I failed. I bet everything on avenging my pup and I lost. I am not worth —"

"Elara." He turned me toward him. "Tell me what happened. Tell me everything. Not for pity. For trust." His voice was rough. "I want to know who hurt you. I want to know who helped them. I want to know their names."

I started talking. I did not stop for a long time. When I was done Ryder held me with his whole arms. He said the things that should have been said to me three years ago. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't ungrateful. Nora wasn't a mistake. The wrong ones were Damon and Julian and Serena.

"Let me help you finish it, Elara. Give me a chance to love you. Let me give you the rest."

"Ryder —"