Page 73 of Monster Queen Rising

"No."

He moves over. I sit down next to him and he puts his arm around me. The light's going gold at the edge of the trees. Down in the yard Crull's got the string line staked and the twins have stopped arguing and started digging.

Thaw won't be back till dark.

The mark at my sternum is warm and the place under my ribs is warm and I sit on the step in the sun with Fen's arm around me and let both of them be.

Chapter twenty-six

Jen

It took six months to believe the quiet.

Six months of nights where nobody came up the drive. Of the registry on the kitchen table with more names crossed off than not. Of women in the bunkhouse across the yard — Crull's bunkhouse, the one he never asked anybody about, that went up in nineteen days once the twins stopped arguing about the string line — learning how to sleep with the windows open, and then learning how to laugh again, which took longer.

Six months of the house settling.

Long enough, finally, for the one thing the work never left room for.

Dinner runs late. All six of my men at the long table, the wine, the bread Crull baked that morning, Madison at the far end withGabi asleep against her shoulder. The bunkhouse fed and gone quiet.

Madison stands first.

She shifts Gabi up and looks at me, and there's something almost a smile in it. "I'm taking her up. We're not coming down." Her hand brushes my shoulder as she passes behind my chair. "You have the house."

The door closes upstairs.

And the pack closes the house around me without anybody being told to.

Daron sets the cameras and they beep once. Dean reads the rotation and shuts the laptop. Thaw walks the perimeter and throws the bolt. Harek checks the cold storage, and Crull banks the stove and pulls the iron door shut on it.

When it's done I stand up, and six sets of eyes come to me.

I don't say anything. I go down the hall to the room at the end — the one we've never used, the wide bed, the window full of trees, the moon coming through silver because I leave the lamps off.

I turn at the door.

They're at the end of the hall. All six. Watching me.

"Well," I say. "Don't all rush at once."

"We talked about it," Daron says. "There's an order."

"There's an order."

"Dean made a list."

"I did not make a list," Dean says.

"He made a list in his head. You can tell. He's got list face."

I step into the room and I leave the door open.

Thaw crosses the room and stops thinking for me.

His hand at my jaw, and he kisses me until my hands have found the front of his shirt without deciding to.

"Are you first on the list?" I say against his mouth.