“It got too hard. Barely scraping by. Always a day away from starving. Running tonics and meds for settlements instead of seeing to myself. I went where things were better.”

“But you never mentioned this place. Not once. How long have you known about it?”

He swallows and looks up. This has always been his tell: a gaze skyward instead of at me meant he was lying, or at least withholding. He’s known for ages. He’s kept it from me, from the pack.

“You rusted-up, scudding—”

“I couldn’t tell you,” he blurts out. “I was trying to protect you, but things got hard. I found myself in a bad place, and it was this or work even worse than trading.” He glances at the fields.

“They killed Old Fang, Astra, and Cobel. Did they tell you that when you joined? They abducted our entire pack!”

“I know.”

“Abducted, Flint! Forced to work these fields and—”

“I KNOW!”

I freeze. He’s looking away again, refusing to make eye contact. “I made the deal I had to make,” he mutters.

In the span of a blink, I’m reliving the night we rolled beneath the stars on the outskirts of camp. I’d been straddling him, and his hands had roamed, slipping beneath the hem of my shirt. “What’s that?” he’d asked when his fingers grazed the scars.

“Nothing,” I’d said.

His hands climbed. “They’re everywhere.”

“Shut up, or we don’t do this.” I grabbed his hands and moved them to my front. I kept the shirt on, but we fell asleep after, and when I stirred, he was already awake, making a fire.

I stagger away from him now, unable to believe it. He saw my back, must have looked when I was asleep. He knows what happened to our Dead River pack because he’s the one who pointed out the way for the General. I don’t know what led him to be cornered by the Loyalists, but when faced with working the fields—a life even more demanding than trading—he spilled my secret, spoke of scars that could be a map.

I made the deal I had to make.

They came looking for me at Dead River because he betrayed our entire pack.

“You bastard.” I swing a fist, but I’m so sluggish and heat-sick that he easily dodges the blow. I crumple to my knees, bracing my palms against the dirt. Something hard connects with my torso, and I roll onto my side, wheezing.

“Dammit. I said I had things under control,” Flint snaps.

“She attacked you,” the other guard says.

“And I dodged it. You didn’t have to kick her.”

“Can’t let field varmint openly attack a Loyalist without punishment. It sets a bad example.”