Chapter 151: He Could Ask. She Could Say No.

Dove opened Ash’s letter before she could waste the evening imagining something worse than the words on the page. Thorne stood beside her, close enough to touch, while Edrik watched the doorway. Neither tried to read over her shoulder.

Ash had written that she should have been safe in the Warren. Her expulsion had been a failure whether he had received the right message or not. He asked to speak with her and said he would not order anyone to bring her back.

She read that last part again. It should have been obvious, and the fact that she was relieved to see it made her angry.

The carrier waited on the customer side of the counter. Dove folded the letter once, carefully, because ripping it would feel wonderful for about three seconds and leave her unable to check what he had actually said.

"Did you see him yourself?" she asked.

"When he gave me the message. The rest of what people are saying, I didn’t see."

"Then start with what you did."

"He was waiting outside when I arrived," the carrier said. "Took the letter before I’d put my bag down. Read it twice, then started writing. He came back while I was eating to make sure I hadn’t left."

Dove looked at the folded page. She could picture that too well, the horns above a doorway, everybody trying to finish a meal beneath his stare. Only this time he had been waiting for her.

"People say he’s abandoned everything to find his fox," the carrier added. "I didn’t see that part. I saw a man who couldn’t leave my bag alone until his letter was in it."

Dove pressed a fingertip against the crease in the paper. "I wasn’t his fox when keeping me safe was inconvenient. It’s an interesting time to discover ownership."

Thorne’s jaw tightened. "Wanting you doesn’t give him that."

"You think that’s what this is?"

"I think he wants you, and admitting he was wrong is harder for him than crossing half the state."

Dove wanted to laugh. Now he wanted her, when she had a room, food, and two men who knew how she liked her coffee. He could have discovered this fascinating interest before she had to build a life without him.

The carrier accepted the water she offered and mentioned another story moving along the rest stops. A large wolf had been treating injured travelers while asking questions. Someone at the eastern stop had seen him heal a badly hurt leg.

Dove went still for a different reason. "What sort of wolf?"

"Big, silver-gray. That’s what the man told me. I didn’t meet him."

Kael’s face came to her before she could stop it, the careful kindness that had sometimes made the Warren bearable. He had helped her and doubted her, often close enough together that she had not known which feeling to keep. She hoped he was safe. That did not mean she knew the rumor was about him, or that she wanted another man arriving to decide what her life should look like.

She asked the carrier to remember where he had heard it. Then she thanked him and turned back to the letter she could actually answer.

Sprout offered to help organize her response. Dove looked at its small private prompt and asked whether it had anything useful besides advice about strong males expressing interest.

"His attention may produce qualifying reactions," Sprout replied.

"His attention gave me a headache. Can I trade that?"

"Headaches are not accepted inventory."

"Then stop helping."

She pulled her notebook closer. She wanted names, something done about the people who had put her outside, and one evening where Ash wasn’t sitting in her head. The third was looking unlikely.

The first version asked Ash whether he had checked under his pride for the missing apology. Edrik read that line when she showed him and suggested keeping it. His smile vanished when his eyes reached the word expulsion; his hand stayed against her back while she kept writing. Thorne leaned over the counter, smiling despite himself, then asked what answer she actually wanted.

Dove crossed it out. She wanted to know what had happened after he learned she had been thrown outside. Had the people responsible simply gone back to their dinners? Had anyone told the men still living there that a woman being difficult did not make her disposable?

She wrote that she was safe, that she did not want a meeting, and that letters could continue through this route if he respected the answer. Then she asked what he had done about the expulsion. If he imagined she was waiting beside the door, he was going to be disappointed.

"Read that before I add something rude," she told Thorne, sliding it over. "I started with go fuck yourself, and apparently I still mean it."

He read it once and gave it back. "It says what you mean."

Edrik leaned against the counter beside her. "I still liked the first one."

"You like anything that makes somebody else have a worse day."

"That isn’t true. I also like you in that shirt."

She looked at him before remembering the carrier was still there. The man became deeply interested in his water cup, and Dove decided she could survive being seen with husbands who actually enjoyed her.

After the message left, she tucked Ash’s letter away with the other papers. She did not want it on the bed or beside her dinner. She slid it beneath the other papers, then went to find the plates. He wasn’t taking their whole evening just because he had finally learned to write.

Thorne asked whether she wanted to close early. Dove checked the nearly empty street and nodded. She shut the vending buttons off too. She could afford a quiet evening, and pretending to be busy would not make the tight feeling in her chest useful.

"Stay with me while we eat," she said, before either man invented an errand. "I don’t need you to do anything. I’d just like you here."

Edrik’s hand found hers under the counter. Thorne turned the sign and brought their plates from the back. Nobody made her explain why asking had felt harder than writing the letter.

They ate rice, chicken, and roasted vegetables while the light outside faded. Dove listened to Thorne complain about Edrik stealing the crispiest pieces, and the room slowly felt like hers again.

Then the lights went out. The wall fan stopped, and the restaurant next door fell quiet before several people started talking at once.

A maintenance worker crossed the shared yard with a flashlight. He stopped at their open rear door when Dove called to him.

"A part failed on the power equipment," he said. "We’re checking what we can replace it with, but it won’t be back tonight."

Dove looked at the warm room and the silent fan. She would have to check their perishable food before bed, and the water she had hoped to chill would stay warm. Tomorrow’s outing had just become a much better idea.