She grins. “What is all this?”
“Kidney beans and potatoes.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You read?”
“I taught myself.” I shrug.
“My mother taught me,” she says. “But we had to do it in secret. My alpha wasn’t a fan of people learning to read.”
“No,” I agree. “Neither was mine. It was a waste of time, he said. If we didn’t have anything to do, we could be developing skills that would help us kill Moon Casters.”
“But Moon Casters can read!”
“Exactly,” I say, grinning. “Why would I let them have any advantage over me?”
“So how did you teachyourselfto read?” she asks.
I’m a little embarrassed to tell her, but what the hell. After everything we’ve just been through, I can’t imagine why shame should exist between us anymore.
“I had a little hideout,” I say. “A place my pack didn’t know about. At the public library.”
“Thelibrary?” she repeats.
I hesitate. “I’m not sure if you know what a library is.”
“No, I know what it is,” she says. “My mother told me about them. I’ve never actually seen one, though.”
“Well, I used to go there when I ran away from my pack,” I tell her. “It never occurred to any of them to look for me at the library. And I’d go to the part that was obviously meant for children, and I’d look through their books. The pictures helped me understand the stories, and that helped me work out the letter sounds.”
“That’s impressive,” she says. “I’ve never known anyone who cared enough to do such a thing. I don’t know if I would have done it myself, if my mother hadn’t taught me.”
“You didn’t hate your pack, though,” I point out. “Not until recently. Isn’t that true? You were willing to go along with what they wanted you to do and who they wanted you to be.”
“I wasn’t just going along,” Emlyn says. “I wasn’t a blind follower.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, you made it sound like that. And that isn’t how it was. Iwantedthe life the pack had to offer. I wanted an alpha mate. I wanted to breed for the people who were my family and contribute to the pack’s next generation. And I wanted to hunt Moon Casters, too.”
“And you were fine just doing whatever an alpha told you to do? Even if he was wrong?”
“It’s the duty of the pack to trust the alpha,” Emlyn says. “That’s what makes us a pack, instead of a bunch of individuals. Have you considered the possibility that maybe you just have a problem with authority?”
“Eat your kidney beans,” I tell her.
She takes a few bites, then sets her fork down. “About the lie,” she says. “You telling me that you knew where the coven was, I mean.”
I tense. Are we going to have to rehash this again? If she tries to walk away from me this time, I’m going to have to stop her. Better that she stays with me of her own free will.
“I owe you an apology,” she says.
I was not expecting that. “Do you?”
“Of course you lied to get out of the cage,” she says. “What you told me was true. Anybody would have done that. I would have done it.”
I nod. “I really didn’t mean it maliciously,” I tell her again.
“I know that,” she says. “It’s fine. But promise me that you won’t lie to me again.”