Knock knock.

I threw a pillow across the room, hitting the door with a dull thud. Cruel sunlight streamed in the open curtains, making my eyes water. I yanked the covers over my head and tried to ignore the knocks.

Knock knock.

Dammit, Elinor. I know I’m ridiculously late. My phone alarm has already rung seven times before I took the battery out. I just can’t face the shop today. Can’t you just take care of it all yourself, and let me wallow in my pain?

Just thinking about picking up a gun and making small talk with strangers made me feel sick.

“Bianca?” A timid voice called through the door. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

I bolted up in bed. Robbie? Why does he want to see me? He should never want to speak to me again. I rubbed my face, feeling the puffiness under my eyes.

“Just a second,” I called, dashing into my ensuite. I grabbed compacts and brushes at random, applying makeup as quickly as I could to hide my splotchy face. I still looked like shit, but at least I could pass for human. I fluffed up my hair, undid the top button on my fleece pyjamas, and climbed back into bed.

Experience had taught me it was always prudent after a fight to not let the other person see how much they got to you. This was even more true when it was someone I really cared about.

“Okay. Come in.”

Robbie pushed open the door, and stepped inside, closing it behind him. I expected him to look the way I felt – i.e. shit – but he stood tall, his shoulders back, his jaw set. His skin glowed with colour, like he’d just been for a long run. I caught a whiff of something in the air – a fresh, dewy scent, like the forest after a light rain.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The words took a few seconds to register. He’s … what? “Why are you apologising?”

Robbie looked at me like I was mad. “We’ve been friends for long enough that I feel I ken you pretty well. I ken how much you hate commitment. I ken that’s not how you do things. But I pushed you, and I’m sorry for that. I won’t ever do that again. If you’ll take me back, if you’ll give me a second chance, I promise I wonnae bring it up again. I’m happy to go on with however you want things. If you want to do the open thing … I mean, I wonnae be with anyone but you, but if you have to do that then I’ll … I mean … I’ll try to—” He gulped. “Just please, donnae let us be over.”

I shook my head. “You have it all wrong, Robbie. Don’t ever apologise to me for telling the truth.”

“But—”

“No buts. You’re not living with your father anymore. You don’t have to fall about trying to please me. Not everything is your fault. You did everything right.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. Tears brimmed in the corner of my eyes, threatening to destroy my slapdash makeup job. “It’s me. I can’t … I just can’t give you what you want. I wish I could, but it’s like every time I think I can, my mother sits on my chest, and her weight starts to choke me, and I just can’t …”

Robbie perched on the end of the bed, his hands resting awkwardly on his lap. “I cannae understand. I met your parents. They dinnae seem so bad.”

I tried to speak, but the words caught in my throat. I coughed, shoved my fists into my eyes as if I could push the spilling tears back inside, and tried again. “My father and mother are cousins.”

I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see the disgust on Robbie’s face. I’d seen it too often before, on men I’d trusted, girlfriends I’d confided in, all of whom left me soon after finding out. I couldn’t bear to see it on Robbie’s face.

“Cousins?” he said finally, his voice quiet.

“They did it because in this family, ‘preserving the bloodline’ is more important than anything, even the rules of common decency. It is legal, but not … not exactly something you throw around. It used to be quite common in Europe, but most of the prominent families gave up the practice in the last century. Not the Sinclairs. Oh no, we were too proud to be swayed by all that feminist claptrap and birth defect research.”

I sucked in another shuddering breath and continued. “From the time I could talk, I was taught to talk down to anyone who wasn’t what my parents considered a ‘proper’ sort of person. Basically, anyone without a title. I just couldn’t understand why I was supposed to treat the African girl in my class differently from the prissy white girls who treated her like shit. My mother told me it was because she had inferior blood. Even then, I couldn’t stand bullies, but my parents, they were the biggest bullies of them all, and I was trapped with them.

“They were the worst to each other. Father had no patience for any of us, especially Mother. He wasn’t happy in the company of people, especially women. He got into trouble in The House of Lords for all his racist, sexist, 19th-century bullshit – and that was from the Tories! – and eventually he was asked to step down. Mother was cruel to him. She always wanted him to be more than he was. She hated the fact that he gave up his political career to teach and study history. He was a disappointment to her. Everyone was a disappointment to her, especially me.”

“I cannae believe that.”

I sniffed. “For years I tried so hard … to be the girl they wanted me to be. All I wanted was for them to tell me they were proud. I did the ballet lessons, learned to play boring old songs on the piano, tried to get top marks at the stuffy public school they sent me to … all the activities that proper ladies did with their proper white lady friends. I hated every minute of it, and they hated everything I was interested in. I’d bring home art projects covered with my teacher’s praise, and Father would yell at me that art was pointless. I was elected the captain of the school cricket team and Mother made me quit because it wasn’t ladylike.”

“Whoah.”

“I always felt different, like I didn’t belong. And then, I hit puberty, and I started to articulate my attraction to women, and act on those feelings. The first time, my boarding school matron caught me in bed with a Muslim girl from my class. I didn’t understand … I didn’t see how something that felt so good could be wrong. I always remember her soft, buttery skin, the way every movement she made hypnotised me, like a trance. Mother had the girl expelled, and she gave me a thrashing and sent me to a camp for wayward girls for the entire summer.”

Flashes of the camp passed before my eyes. It had been in an old nun’s cloister from the 14th century, the walls bare whitewashed stone, the doorways framed with gothic arches. We girls slept in cots in a dorm room, with no technology, no colour, no gossip, no books to read apart from the Bible. I remembered the cruelty of the nuns as they tried to break us with hours on our knees in the lofty church, their punishments, the harsh lectures of the Mother Superior on our moral shortcomings.

“At that camp, I met other girls like me – girls who liked other girls, girls who wanted to be artists or writers instead of housewives, girls who fell in love with black men, defiant girls who wanted to do their own thing in life, but that independence made them dangerous somehow. We spent every day being told these thoughts and actions were the devil whispering in our ears. We prayed for hours on our knees, until our skin split and big sores opened up. We had to memorise Bible passages and listen to each other confess all sorts of sins. So many of the girls fell victim to the brainwashing, but everything they tried to shove down my throat made me determined that I’d never deny my true self any longer. I went back to school and snogged as many girls as possible. I stopped caring about any of my classes except art. I got my first tattoo. But no matter how hard I fought, I was trapped. Always Mother dragged me back there, to that house. Always she punished me for nothing more than being who I was.”

“But, Bianca, you’re not your mother. You’d never do these things to another person, so why would you be afraid of—”

“Don’t you see? I got out, Robbie. They nearly took everything from me, but in the end, I won. I got out, with my humanity intact. They couldn’t break me. But if I tied myself to someone else … it could happen again. Just because someone is supposed to love you, doesn’t mean they won’t try to control you. I won’t ever risk my freedom on the slim chance of love everlasting. It’s not worth it.”

A hand reached out and circled my wrists, the fingers closing around mine. Robbie tugged, drawing my hand from my eyes. “Bianca, look at me.”

So soft. His voice warm and kind, like my favourite sweater on a cold day. I opened my eyes.

“I ken a little about what you went through,” he said. “I was trapped, too. My old pack … it wasnae anything like what Caleb has created here. We were a gang of thugs, of men who lived outside the law. My father didnae care about anything except that Angus and I should take over the family business once he was gone. That business being the running of drugs through Aberdeen and beyond.

“I’ve done horrible things, Bianca … things that haunt my dreams, all because I was afeard of him. He was so fierce when he was angry, and he made me believe that the only future I could possibly have was with him and the pack. He dinnae even allow Angus and I to go to school … I always thought it was because he dinnae believe in it, but now I believe it was because it was just another way to control us.” He gulped. “I can barely read or write. I cannae do maths. I dinnae know anything about world history I haven’t seen in a movie. There’s no job I can do with the skills I have except for beating people up.”

“That’s not true, Robbie. You’ve done an amazing job on the house. And for someone who can’t read, you’ve got closer than anyone to finding the ring—”

His grip on my wrist tightened. He squeezed his eyes shut as painful memories flooded over him. My heart broke for him, for everything he’d endured.

Robbie’s eyes fluttered open, and met mine with an intense gaze. “My mother used to bring home books from the library and read me stories when Dad was gone. She’d show me these beautiful books with bright pictures about kids who slayed dragons and families who worked together to solve mysteries and brave princes who saved princesses from evil witches. I wished so hard that I’d wake up inside one of those stories, that I’d get to live in a family like that. I came with Caleb because when he showed up again, I realised there was hope, that maybe families like the ones in storybooks actually exist, but you had to make them yourself. I thought … I could find the brothers I’d never had in the pack. And then I met you, and I knew it was true. You inspire me, Bianca, because the life you’ve made for yourself is so remarkable, and I just want to be a part of it, even if it’s only a tiny part.”

I laced my fingers in his. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I’ve realised we’re just as fucked up as each other.”

He laughed as he squeezed my hand. “Aye.”

“Robbie, I can’t go from nothing to a serious relationship right now, but … I really do care about you so much, and I want us to work. I want to try … this exclusive commitment thing, see if I like it.”

“But you cannae do it, Bianca. You said so.”

“I haven’t tried it before, so I guess we’ll find out. But I want to do it, and I usually get what I want.”

He kissed me, long and deep, the kiss sinking right through my body like a deep tissue massage.

“Just don’t call me your girlfriend, or partner, or significant other,” I said as I pulled away. “I can’t handle any of those things right now. Give me some time to ease into this slowly.”

“What about if I call you my wife?” Robbie grinned.

“Don’t push your luck.” I wrapped my arms around him, drawing him back for another kiss.

* * *

After a glorious bout of lovemaking, Robbie left to get dressed. I got out of bed, showered, scrubbed my makeup off and reapplied it, and headed downstairs to get breakfast.

Rolf was in the kitchen, washing dishes, one of June’s old frilly aprons tied around his waist. He looked so ridiculous, I had to laugh.

“Good morning.” He grinned at me as I hovered in the doorway. “I was going to bring you some breakfast, but Robbie said I shouldn’t disturb you. He was quite rude about it, actually.”

“He just knows me well,” I said, slumping over to turn on the coffee machine. “I’m really not a morning person. I’m running late for work anyway, so I’ll just grab something from a bakery on the way.”

“What do you do, Bianca? It must pay well if you’ve got a house like this and you can roll in at ten o’clock.”

I grinned. “I wish. This house was inherited, so I don’t pay a mortgage. I’m a tattoo artist. I run my own tattoo studio so I can basically show up whenever I want. My boss is pretty relaxed about it.”

Rolf gazed down at the ink running along my arms. “I should have guessed. Is your place in Crookshollow?”

“Yeah. It’s called Resurrection Ink. There are dancing skeletons in the window. You can’t miss it.”

“Cool. I was thinking of having a look around the town before I met up with Caleb today. Do you have many appointments?” He rubbed his own impressive sleeve. “I’d love to get some of the colours retouched.”

“I’m busy until one, but after that, you’re welcome to come in.”

“It’s a date. I’ll even bring you a late breakfast.”

“Deal.” I poured my coffee into a thermos, strapped it over my shoulders, and headed for the door. Robbie met me in the hall, a strange expression on his face.

“You’re going to tattoo Rolf?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, why?”

“I don’t trust that guy,” he mumbled to me, as he draped my coat over my arm.

“Caleb and Irvine trust him. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t exactly trust Irvine either, but I know that’s because of our history.” Robbie jabbed a finger toward the kitchen. “The Wulfrics … they’re the biggest pack in Europe. But they got that way by attacking and overpowering other packs and integrating them. You have to be pretty ruthless to cut that kind of path to power.”

“I get it, but I don’t think Rolf did that personally, and he’s got no path to power to cut in my shop, so I’ll be fine.” I rubbed his cheek. “It’s you I’m worried about. Are you going to be okay alone in the house with him, especially this close to the full moon? If I come home and this place has been trashed and there are claw marks through the ottoman—”

“I’ll be fine.” He kissed me, long and deep. “Have fun sticking needles in people. I’ll see you this evening.”

As I turned to the door, an odd shiver ran down my back, and I had the oddest feeling that a pair of eyes were following my every move. I whirled around, but apart from Robbie, I couldn’t see anyone else.

Where had that feeling come from?