Chapter 3 The Wolf in the Cell

Halden's smile stayed on his face while he explained the schedule for Friday. He used the word assistance four times. Each time he said it, I felt the folder under my arm get heavier.

"The confirmation is a formality," he said. "A bond is a fact, Miss Nia. The Registry only records it. You will find that the court is not your enemy here."

"The court has not yet decided what it is to me," I said.

"Then let me help you decide." He glanced at Kade, and something passed over his face that was too quick to name. "Your mate is unregistered, which complicates the paperwork. He will need a holding cell until Friday, standard procedure for an unregistered wolf in a bond case."

"I am not going into a cell," Kade said. It was the first thing he had said since Halden walked in, and his voice was flat and calm and did not invite argument.

"You are going into a cell," Halden said pleasantly. "Or you are going into a cell with restraints. The choice is entirely yours, and I would prefer you chose the comfortable one."

The two officers stepped forward. Kade looked at me. I saw the moment he decided not to fight, and I saw what it cost him, and I did not have a single legal ground to stand on that would have stopped them.

"I will be there Friday," I said. "Do not sign anything. Do not speak to anyone without me. If they offer you a deal, you say no."

"I know how cells work, counselor."

"You know how feral camps work. This is different."

The officers took him through the door at the end of the corridor. I watched until the door closed, and then I turned to Halden and asked the question I had been holding since he walked in.

"Why are you presiding over my confirmation? There are twelve registrars in this building."

"Because I was asked to," he said. "The Council takes an interest in unusual cases. A licensed Luna who is also a Registry attorney is unusual."

"I am not licensed."

"Not yet." He put on his coat, one arm and then the other, and adjusted the collar. "Friday, Miss Nia. Nine in the morning."

He left. Thessaly stayed a moment longer, her sharp blue eyes moving over my face as though she were reading a page.

"You should be careful who you take advice from in this building," she said. "That is not a threat. It is the only kindness I can offer you today."

She followed Halden out. I stood alone in the marble corridor with the brass lamps humming, and then I went down to the holding level.

The holding cells were in the basement, behind a security door that required a key card and a handprint. Ruth from the front desk had given me the card after a long look that said she was doing me a favor she might regret. The guard on duty was a broad-shouldered man named Marcus with a shaved head and a scar on his chin, and he checked my pass twice before he let me through.

"Ten minutes," he said. "The feral one has been quiet. Quiet is usually worse than loud."

The cell was at the end of a short corridor, lit by a single strip of light above the door. There was a bench against the wall, a drain in the floor, and a small window high up that let in a square of grey sky. Kade sat on the bench with his back against the concrete and his knees drawn up, and when the door opened he lifted his head.

I stepped inside and the door closed behind me.

I had been in that cell a dozen times with a dozen clients. I knew the smell of it, the damp concrete and the old bleach and the faint metallic undertone of the drains. I knew how the strip light buzzed. None of that prepared me for what happened when I crossed the floor and sat down on the bench beside him.

His scent hit me first. Pine and cold earth and something deeper beneath it, warm skin and woodsmoke from the camp. It filled the cell the way water fills a glass, and it was so specific, so familiar, that my body reacted before my mind caught up. My pulse jumped. The skin on my arms rose. Somewhere low in my chest, the wolf I had spent years keeping quiet turned over in her sleep.

Then he took my hand.

He did it slowly, giving me time to pull away, and I did not pull away. His fingers closed around mine and the contact went through me like a struck match. Heat spread up my wrist and into my forearm, and my breath caught, and I felt the place where his teeth had broken the skin begin to ache as though it remembered him.

I pulled my hand back. The ache stayed.

"What was that?" My voice came out rough.

"That is the bond," Kade said. "It has been getting stronger since the bite. It will keep getting stronger until the Registry confirms it or refuses it."

"You did not mention this part."

"I did not think I had to. You are the one who reads the act. It is in the act."

I pressed my palm against my knee to stop the tingling. "The act says the bond creates a legal partnership. It does not say anything about that."

"Then the act is incomplete." He leaned his head back against the concrete and looked at me. In the grey light from the window his eyes were very blue, and his sandy hair was still flattened from the tent. "The Registry knows what a bond is, counselor. They have just decided to call it paperwork."

I did not have an answer for that. I sat with it, and the cell hummed, and after a moment he spoke again.

"Listen to me. You are going to go upstairs and you are going to start asking questions about Friday. When you do, watch everyone. Do not trust the registrar, do not trust the clerk who gave you the file, and do not trust the inspector who told you to be careful."

"Thessaly?"

"Especially her. She has been in this building longer than the Registry has had a name for what it does. She knows where the bodies are buried because she buried some of them."

"How do you know that?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Because a file told me. The same one I burned."

Marcus banged on the door. Time. I stood up, and Kade stood with me, and for a moment we were close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him, and the ache in my wrist sharpened and then eased, as though it were listening to him.

"Friday," I said. "I will be there."

"I know you will." He sat back down. "One more thing, counselor. When they bring you the bond documents, read the third page before you sign. The third page is where they put the clauses they hope you will skip."

I stopped with my hand on the door. "How do you know there is a third page?"

Kade looked up at me, and in the grey light of the cell his face was very still.

"Because I have seen the third page before," he said. "With another name on it."