The Twisting by Laurel Wanrow Read Free Book Online Page A

know —what a ropen’s capable of. When I discovered your head injury and the fact you weren’t able to look out for yourself, he pretty much appointed himself your guard.”
    “Guard? Daeryn was guarding me?”
    “He was absolutely sick over what happened. Despite Miz Gere’s reports that Maxillon was banned and definitely gone, Daeryn slept here for days and insisted I spell him overnight. Others wanted to help, too.”
    “Other people can get into my room, too?” A shiver shot up her spine, and Annmar clutched the chair arms.
    “No. Just Miriam. Annmar, do you know how bad off you were? When you didn’t wake up, you scared the living daylights out of me. Out of all of us.”
    Annmar loosened her grip. Mary Clare seemed sincere. Of course she was. Mary Clare was her friend. “Sorry. I was scared, too. I still am. My head hurt so bad, I couldn’t think. It’s just…” She rubbed her arms, looking around her cozy room, the one she had thought was hers and hers alone, and drew in a breath. “Mistress Gere promised me I’d be safe in my room, and I don’t understand—oh, dash it all, I sound like a big baby.”
    “No. No, you don’t.” Mary Clare knelt at her side and took Annmar’s cold hands in her warm ones. “You need to feel safe. That’s what Dae was trying to do for you, don’t you see? He likes you.”
    Mary Clare made it all sound so normal. “He has a funny way of showing he likes me, sleeping in my bed as a polecat.”
    A smile twitched at Mary Clare’s mouth. “That’s akin to courting for an animacambire. Rivley says the beasts like lots of touching and togetherness. You may not remember, but you wanted Dae here. You asked for him.”
    “ I thought he was a cat! ”
    “He is an animal. A weasel. Sometimes. That’s Daeryn, Annmar. If you think you’d like to get to know him better, that’s him. The polecat, who fought a shifter twice the size of a wolf to protect you, the same ‘kitty’ you slept with this week and the boy who so desperately wanted to protect you, he snuck in by way of his gildan link to Riv.”
    Annmar followed the explanation right up to the last, and she didn’t think the confusion was due to her injured head. “What you just said, how did Daeryn enter my room without my permission?” Annmar snatched her hands away and crossed her arms. “And Miriam, too?”
    Mary Clare rocked back on her heels and sat on the rug before the chair. “Miz Gere let Miriam in with her Knack control, so that’s normal. But as for Rivley and Daeryn…” She raised a hand helplessly, then wrapped her arms around her bent knees.
    Uh oh. This part wasn’t going to be normal.
    Mary Clare drew a breath. “I suppose it’s like they shared the permission. It would happen with any set of linked ’cambires—same as pack, you know, like Jac and Maraquin are.”
    Annmar rubbed her forehead. Yes, she remembered the roundish mark on Maraquin’s shoulder that Mary Clare had said she had to draw correctly. “A pack mark?”
    “Right. Pack mark is a Knack connection ’cambires get when they become pack. It’s temporary, unless the alpha keeps giving the mark. Rivley explained to me a gildan is a different type of Knack connection. It’s a blood-binding spell. One that stays until the spell is fulfilled.”
    A blood spell? “What’s the binding for?”
    Mary Clare sighed. “To complete three lessons and correct their actions that resulted in the death of a packmate.”
    That ache of loss simmered anew in Annmar. Even with the little she knew of their packs, she realized that the person who died must have been a close friend. How terrible for them. “You mean it was their fault the person died?”
    “No, Riv said the death was an accident.” Mary Clare wrinkled her nose. “But they were the alpha and beta of the pack, so they’re held responsible. Their Elders used old spells for the gildan, binding them with their own shed blood. It’s the kind of creepy old Basin doings my