Chapter 16 · No Bugs in January

The door doesn't open. It comes apart.

One kick and the rot folds in like wet cardboard. The dark behind it fills up with a shape too big for the frame.

Blue eyes. Not wolf-blue. The kind that doesn't blink.

I've got the fire iron up in both hands before my brain catches up. Two feet of rusted pig iron, and it's shaking. I hate that it's shaking.

"Evening, Briar."

Gravel and rain, that voice. Torin ducks under the beam and steps in like he owns the mountain this shack is nailed to. Water sheets off his coat and makes a black ring on Maren's floor.

Nine days of nothing. Then this.

"You're dripping on my floor."

"This is a floor?" He takes it in slow — pallet in the corner, one tin cup on the shelf, fishing line strung over the stove to dry. His jaw works once, hard. "You've been living like a dog."

"Better than living like your consort."

Nothing. No twitch. That's the part that scares me. Not the shoulders. Not the door. The nothing.

"Put it down."

"No."

He doesn't argue.