Page 33

The whole tent goes quiet. Hattie grabs my arm. Somewhere, Auntie Bess whispers, “Here she goes.”

The mayor’s wife bursts into tears.

Hattie wins. Of course she wins. They give her a blue ribbon and a little tin cup, and she holds it up and turns around and finds me in the crowd and grins at me so wide I forget there are three hundred humans in this tent.

I’ve been alive in this body for a little over a month. I don’t know a lot about being a person yet. But I know I’d stand in this loud, sweaty, apple-stinking field every autumn for the rest of my life just to watch her smile at me like that.

And then I smell him.

Horse. Leather. Sweat. And alpha. A big one. A stranger.

I find him before Hattie does. He’s coming down the aisle between the tables, tall and wide, with a heavy coat and too many rings on his fingers. A cattle trader, maybe, come over the mountain to sell his herd at the fair. I’ve seen his kind pass through these woods before. They always walk like the ground owes them something.

He’s looking at Hattie.

She’s back at her table now, laughing with Auntie Marigold, holding up her blue ribbon. She doesn’t see him coming. And I’m too far away, stuck behind a crowd of humans who won’t get out of the fucking way.

He stops in front of her table. Leans down. And sniffs.

I see her stiffen. I see her smile go away.

And I see his hand close around her wrist.

“Well, now,” he says, loud and lazy, pulling her toward him across the table. “Smell that. Honey all the way down.” He leans in closer, his nose right by her throat. Right by her neck. Right by her gland. “No bite on you, sweet thing. Nobody’s claimed you yet?”

I don’t remember crossing the field.

One second I’m stuck behind a crowd. The next, I’m standing right behind him, and the crowd has opened up around us, and everybody is very quiet.

I don’t yell. I don’t grab him. I just reach over his shoulder and put my hand on top of his. The one that’s holding her wrist.

Then I close my fingers.

Slow. Gentle. My hand wraps all the way around his, and I squeeze, just enough for him to feel how much more I could squeeze. The grain in my knuckles creaks.

He goes very still.

I lean down so my mouth is right next to his ear.

“Remove your hand from my mate,” I tell him, calm and quiet and polite. “You have one chance to do it while you still own it.”

He lets go of her.

I don’t let go of him.

He turns his head, slowly, and looks up at me. And up. And up. He’s a big man. He’s probably never had to look up at anybody in his life. His face goes pale under all that sunburn.

“No offense meant,” he croaks.

“Plenty taken.” I give his hand one more squeeze, and he winces. “When you go back over that mountain, you tell everybody you see that the beekeeper is spoken for. And if I ever smell you on this side of the ridge again, I’ll come find you. I know these woods better than you know your own ass.”

I let go.

He backs away, rubbing his hand. Then he turns around and walks, very fast, straight out of the fair. The crowd parts for him. Somebody’s goat bleats.

I don’t watch him go. I turn around to Hattie.

She’s standing there behind her table with her blue ribbon in one hand and her other hand held up against her chest. I take her wrist, gently, and turn it over. There are red marks on her skin where he held her.