Chapter 21 · Iron Cages and Broken Vows

Torin's hand didn't move off my belly.

Wide. Warm. Pinning me to the wet floorboards like he could hold the whole situation still if he just pressed hard enough. Nothing kicked. Too early for that. His face went somewhere I'd never seen it go anyway.

"You carried my pup into a flood," he said. "And you thought you could run."

"I thought I could leave." I got an elbow under me and shoved. He didn't budge, so I quit wasting the effort. "There's a difference. You know there's a difference."

"Leave." He said it like the word had a bad taste. "Say it again."

"Our contract ended at midnight. I said the words at the altar. You were standing right there, so don't you dare act like —"

"You said them with my child inside you."

"Yeah." My voice cracked and I hated it more than I hated him. "That's the part where you don't get to be the wounded one, Torin."

Rain drummed the shanty roof. Half the shingles were gone from the flood, and water ran down the back of his neck into his collar, and he never wiped it. He just looked at me. Ten seconds. Fifteen.