Valka
Past
"Malachy's here," Father says, but unlike every other night, he doesn't move from the threshold. Neither does he smile. "Consider accepting his proposal, Lyra. You cannot live this way forever."
I stiffen, hand dropping from the waves in my hair that tumble down my back. "He doesn't know what I am. What we are--"
"Such is the excuse you give every time a suitor comes for your hand," he cuts in, displeasure stark in his face. "They are not all the same, the wolves. You never quite know until you learn to have trust."
"Trust is not the problem." I whirl away from the mirror. He looks exactly as he did the day I turned eighty, forty-some years ago--timeless, unchanging. "This could risk everything. And what do you think will happen when, fifty years from now, Malachy is grey and dying, and I remain as I am? And our children? What if they inherit more wolf than Lycan? Shall I watch them wither too? Or abandon them before they can notice I do not age?"
