Page 40 of In Her Own Rite

The air grows quiet, and I know what she’s thinking.

“So then why did you leave?” she asks finally.

I swallow. “My training—”

“There are carpenters on Saroe, Kier. Why did you have to go all the way to Keist?”

I think back to that summer. The night I left—fromhere, their vacation house on the shore in Halluk. Em had just turned eighteen, and I was a hair over of twenty. It was the summer I realized I loved her.

“You were dating Oskar,” I say weakly.

She rolls her eyes. “You were dating Astrid. And then Charlotte, and then Ester, if I remember correctly.Next.”

I look up at the sky, running a hand over my shoulder, massaging the muscle, trying to think. The snow is falling harder now, but I’m still not cold.

“Do you remember that night?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“What do you remember?”

She turns her body towards me, her knees resting on my leg.

“We were here,” she says. “The guys had a fight. I don’t remember about what, but it was a shouting match, and I panicked. It was the first time you saw me shift.”

“The only time,” I say quietly.

She swallows. “You and I were alone in the room upstairs. And I was so scared, I couldn’t control myself. I shifted, and I couldn’t go back. And you… you held me, for the first time. Until I felt safe enough to control it. Until I could get back into my skin again. And then, when I did…”

I set my jaw, feeling the shame wash over me. When she shifted into her wolf form, she’d torn through her clothes. I was holding her when she shifted back, so she ended up naked on my lap.

It had been a few months since I’d known I was in love with her. She had a boyfriend. I had Astrid, or Charlotte, then—I don’t remember which, but it should have mattered, and it didn’t. I couldn’t stop myself, and I kissed her. It could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour. It’s a miracle we didn’t go any farther, with how badly I wanted her even then.

“I knew you were deciding on your traineeship,” she says quietly. “And I asked you to stay. So me, you, and Seb and Gabe could make our ownfika.”

“I wanted that,” I say. I still want it, now—more than I know how to say.

“So then why?”

“I didn’t want—” I groan, trying to find the words. “God, Em, I’m not good at this stuff. Do we have to talk about this?”

“You know, for years I thought I was a terrible kisser.”

I bark out a laugh. “What?”

“Yeah. It took until I was dating Arjen for me to learn that my mouth wasn’t, you know. Cursed.”

“I— Em.” I can’t help but laugh, and she gives me a look.

“That’swhat happens when we don’t talk.”

I swallow, pulling away from her. “Okay. I don’t know. But I remember I kissed you and something in me… took over, I don’t know.” I shake my head, unable to meet her eyes. “When I went out with the guys to get firewood, we came back and saw you and Oskar.”

“Hewas kissingme. I was confused.”

“You kissed him back. And I didn’t want to make you choose.”

“Kieran,” she says softly. “It would have been such an easy decision.”

---