We’d panicked. Both of us. “I had to calm him down. I couldn’t let them take him away. I had to—”
Had to what? I wasn’t explaining this right. River was sitting very still, an odd light in her eyes that I couldn’t quite diagnose.
“I had to protect him. And me. So I took everything I felt for the pack. I saw the bond, and instead of closing myself off to it, I pulled. I pulled at it and I thrust it toward Ink.”
I expected River to tell me again that what I’d done was impossible, but instead, she looked down at her knees, and in the softest voice I’d ever heard her use, she asked me the last question I ever expected to hear from her lips. “Could you do it again?”
For a second, I thought she was asking if, given the chance, I would go back in time and do the exact same thing again, knowin
