Chapter Four – Courage

Anna's bedchamber was partially wreathed in evanescent oceanic August sunlight, coming through somewhat shuttered windows in dusty bars of light. It created strangely fuzzy patterns of light and shade, and Anna saw those patterns reflected in the two living souls in the room. Anna felt infected with darkness and depression, and she saw this new therapist and nurse, Elsa Wolff, as a living, breathing bastion of light and goodness.

Yet Elsa Wolff was also an imposter. An angel with a flaming sword, to keep Anna barred from her rightful place in heaven. It was more pain she offered, not peace. From her previous nurses, Anna knew this well.

Miss Wolff stood at her bedside. She was quiet. She was calm. She seemed rooted, grounded, as if not the greatest storm in all the world could displace her from her spot, or from her duty. Anna wanted to smile; how she had despised the nervous anxiety of her previous nurses, with their deference, their restlessness, their numerous apologies both spoken and inferred!

Anna wanted to smile, but she did not.

She wanted Miss Wolff to speak again. Her nurse's voice had come to her earlier today out of the depths of incredible pain and soul-darkness. The stranger's voice, a little deep, yet still so feminine, carried whole undercurrents of courage and strength within it. Anna didn't know this woman, yet she already wanted the comfort of her voice.

And the magic art of her hands. Pain continued to radiate down her spine, continued to reverberate in her head. Johan hadn't noticed. He hadn't eyes for this.

Would Miss Wolff?

With a single wave of her hand, Anna invited Miss Wolff to sit on the chair next to Anna's bedside. She watched as Miss Wolff sat with exquisite grace, her blue skirts flaring, her ankles tucked under each other, her neck soft and long. A hard spike of envy thrust through Anna's heart; to have such effortless elegance once more!

Her years with Hans had forcibly taught her grace; decades of practice had eroded the more clumsy parts of her nature. A year ago, she could have matched Miss Wolff in every social gesture and grace.

Now.

Now, Anna's resolve flickered as the woman took her seat and then resumed her patient, watchful stance. There was a hint of a smile on her face; Anna's frostiness did not touch her, yet she would remain deferential. Miss Wolff's soul seemed so strong!

Could Miss Wolff actually help her? Or would she become like the three others before her, drawing a steady paycheck while staying meek, submissive, and overly compassionate, all too willing to drug Anna away from her pain? Nurse Adelsson and all the others before her had treated Anna with such deference, such reverence, as if Anna were not even human at all, but a shattered porcelain doll that had been hastily glued back together.

Fragile. Delicate. There was no one who would treat her as an equal. Her own son almost feared to talk to her, to touch her or kiss her cheek. Johan considered her broken, just like everyone else.

And she was. Anna was broken. She was but a collection of long planes and sharp edges with nought in between.

And, like all broken things, it was time she was discarded.

Anna shifted uncomfortably in her seat, expecting Miss Wolff to jump up to assist. Miss Wolff did not. She just sat there, with that small and sincere smile on her face. Anna settled into a slightly better position for her aching back, glad that the pain had sharpened her focus once more.

She could keep to her plan. She could be hard.

"And what impertinent yet important care-giving questions would you ask, Miss Wolff?" Anna finally asked, flavouring her voice with the colour of steel and hoping she had the strength of will to reject this woman and everything she would offer.

"Firstly, despite serving in Lord Galthe's company for the last year, I am still unused to being called by my last name. It would please me greatly, my lady, if you would call me Elsa."

Oh, her voice was as smooth as oiled silk, as rich and sweet as the toffee made by the candyman in Leeds. It made Anna think of her English mother, of summers she had spent in England, and of the comfort that all mothers brought to their children.

But then she thought of what Miss Wolff had said.

Anna had always clashed with Hans on the issue of servant's names. She had insisted on Christian names, with permission from the servant, of course. Hans had insisted on formality and distance, using surnames. Anna, undeterred in those early years, had called all her servants by their first names and taught her children likewise. Hans had learned to accept it as one of her… idiosyncrasies.

But now?

Now, Anna stayed hard.

"I believe that is a privilege you must earn, Wolff. There are certain rules we abide by here. If you don't mind following our customs, that is."

Anna left that barb out there, but Wolff did not impale herself on it.

No, this woman simply took her words in stride. "As you wish," Wolff replied, her voice soft. Anna's coldness didn't seem to affect her. "I will be guided by you in this. I may need guidance in many things, here in a new household.

"Secondly, our work together is going to be quite intimate. I promise to respect your privacy and your wishes in any of our interactions, but do know that there is no judgment on my part. I will push you, my lady. I will challenge you. But it is only because I wish to serve you well, and to help you regain your strength."

Wolff's words, while expected, only highlighted one of the things Anna hated most about being an invalid. She could barely bathe herself or dress herself. She couldn't leave her bedroom without much preparation, and even then she had to be carried down the stairs, to then be wheeled about in her wheelchair.

Her nurses had seen her nakedness, her shrunken limbs, her pallid skin, her many surgical scars. It was just another reason to keep her mental fortress strong, to keep a safe distance from her nurses. The boundary of her social position had proved immensely formidable in the past, but this time her nurse wasn't Norwegian, or even English. This Canadian might not care as much for social standings and ceremonies.

Anna thought all of this, but only said, "Understood."

Again, Wolff didn't seem to mind her abruptness. Who was this woman?

Wolff only nodded and continued with, "Thirdly, I don't mean to be indelicate or rude, but if I am to serve you well, and bring you back to your former health and happiness, I will need your help, my lady. I will need you to be honest with me."

Anna hadn't expected those words. No one had ever said them before. Her eyes began to blaze as ire flashed through her heart. It didn't help that the pain was getting steadily worse, clawing at her backside and scratching her skull. Pain always made her shorter of temper.

She welcomed the pain now as she attempted to parry with this nurse, to somehow browbeat her into submission.

"I am not ordinarily in the habit of lying," Anna hissed, clipping her words in her anger.

"No, you may not be. But you are in the habit of protecting your son and family. You want to shelter them from seeing you as you truly feel, as you truly are. You want to spare your family from the agony that feeds on you, that inhabits your every muscle, your every bone, even in this very moment…"

All the breath escaped Anna's lungs, and she scrambled for a sense of control. How had Wolff known?

No one knew this!

Wolff did not stop. Her words were no longer like toffee. They were like the humming of steel train wheels on long tracks in white white January snow and just as inexorable.

Anna trembled; catastrophe loomed!

Wolff leaned forward slightly as she continued, "My lady, you are being stoic, and stalwart, and so very brave. Your feelings do you so much credit, Lady Skaldenfoss, but they are not necessary in this room, and in the space I create. Please, I implore you, do not lie to me. Tell me exactly how you feel, and then I can help you."

"And what if I do not want to be helped?" Anna quietly asked, not able to stop the words from flowing over her tongue like boiled tar. "What if I have already chosen another path? What if I just want all of this to be over?" It took some effort to keep her voice from thundering in anger and frustration. Anna was glad she could still control her emotions and her speech, even if she could control nothing else.

"Do you not want to see little Olaf and baby Hans, and Claire and Heidi grow up?"

Of course this wretched nurse would mention Anna's beloved grandchildren, especially Lily's new son, born three months after the accident. Johan had insisted on giving his son his father's name, and Anna had to be content. It wasn't Johan's fault… Anna had never told him the extent of Hans' abuse, of his many indiscretions. It would have been unfair to saddle her son with those marital concerns. Especially now that Hans was dead, and it was best not to speak of those beyond the grave.

But when Anna had held that baby in her arms, when she had seen the softness of his skin, the joy in his little movements, the perfection of his fine dark hair, the fingers and the toes of his little body; her son's son became Hans in every way that her own husband could not. Though Anna had been in traction, and a bedsore had been lanced the previous day, causing infection and so much hidden agony, she had held that precious little baby in her arms and hoped that God would not abandon her and her family.

Just when had God decided to take a vacation, only to discover that Anna Arendelle had finally reached ruin?

Anger and shame made Anna's voice shake as she hissed, "That was unfair and unkind, Miss Wolff."

Wolff's face was solemn, yet still radiated love and warmth as she took the chastening in stride. "I know it was a low blow, Lady Skaldenfoss. I can only imagine how hard these past eight months have been for you. But I beg you to give me a chance. Give me a month, to start with, for us to work together. Let me prove my worth to you, and you will rediscover your joy for life."

Anna, originally surprised and a bit confused by the strange slang that Wolff used, found that she was once again close to tears. This pain was so very different from that muted pain that constantly raged in her head and down her back.

This was pain that exploded from the ravaged crevasse of a broken heart.

A long, ancient, deeply broken heart.

Deep down, Anna knew that she didn't want to die. She wanted to live, not only to see her grandchildren grow, but to grow older with them.

Six-year old Claire, she already had so much of Anna's beloved Leif in her; would she have Leif's talent for the violin as well? Helene lived with the family, yet taught her daughter both Norwegian and French (Anna had secretly been giving the girl English lessons as well), and Anna despaired of the day that sweet Helene would take Claire away from them, perhaps to return to her native France.

Ingrid had named her daughter after her dead sister, would little Heidi have the same compassion for animals great and small? Oh, the kittens Anna would be forced to foster, those stray kittens that her own Heidi had brought home with a tearful face, and of course they would have a home here. Those kittens; they were worth Hans' indignation and ire.

Anna had not thought of her Heidi's stray cats in years. Did they still live in the stable? What generation had lived on, of those little cats that her daughter had saved?

Then there was Olaf, Johan and Lily's eldest son, and heir to the title Skaldenfoss. Three years old, he was the sweetest boy, generous and loving, incredibly content to sit in laps and hear stories and be cuddled. Anna had not seen him in weeks, maybe even a month.

It was inexcusable.

It was…

Humbling.

Maybe it was Wolff's rooted posture, maybe it was her constant small smile, but Anna actually felt humbled.

Yes, she wanted to live.

But the pain, the endless humiliation and shame and agony she would have to endure to emerge on the other side…

"I don't know if I can do it, Wolff, " Anna quietly said. "I'm speaking truthfully now, as you requested. Right now, at this moment, I don't have the heart to continue. My courage. It's gone."

To her surprise, Elsa Wolff did not immediately respond. She instead became inordinately present, as if Anna herself were a meteor shower or the northern lights; the most important thing in all her sight and existence. As the target of such concentration, Anna trembled. Rarely had she been perceived thusly.

Wolff seemed to allow Anna's last statement, in all its pain, in all its beauty, to saturate the air between them.

The unexpected silence reverberated strongly in Anna Arendelle's heart. The pause, though small, seemed to be a tribute, a truthful acceptance of all Anna had just said.

Then Wolff leaned slightly forward. She stretched out her hand, and touched Anna on her wrist. Her beautiful blue eyes were intense and focused, and she quietly said, "My courage, I give to you, as I would give all good things to you."

Anna felt that touch on her wrist even as she heard the words and reeled from the sincerity of them. They were grappling hooks over the walls she had painstakingly built around her broken body and spirit. Those words sunk deep inside her, and Anna knew that she would remember them forever.

It pained her when Wolff withdrew her hand, and broke the unsolicited contact.

Yet Wolff continued her verbal assault. "You have little reason to trust me, my lady. I may have helped you earlier, but I am unknown to you, I am a stranger. But I beg of you to trust me nonetheless. If you allow me to serve you, I will bring you back to the life you want, and the life you so richly deserve."

The sincerity. Anna couldn't bear it.

So she moistened her lips and asked, "Can you really help me? So many others have tried, and failed. Look at me, Wolff. I am a broken woman. I cannot be mended. So do not give me false hope. I couldn't bear it. If you would serve me, you would let me go, and let me be!" Anna's voice shook slightly as she spoke.

Again, Wolff did not immediately reply or try to negate Anna's emotions. She just continued to regard Anna with that strong, compassionate gaze. Finally she said, "I will not let you go, Lady Skaldenfoss. You can't fool me. You sit there as the embodiment of all that is winter, all that is dead and frozen and cold. Yet I see something else in your eyes. Deep inside, you hold an invincible summer.

"I promise you I can do it. If I have any gift in life, Lady Skaldenfoss, it is this, the gift of true healing. This is what I do. This is what I live for."

Anna's mind reeled from the words spoken with such conviction and sincerity and beauty. The fervent words caused an answering cascade of hope in Anna's heart.

Was Anna's resolve really so weak, that a few heartfelt words from a complete stranger could change the course of her fate?

Or perhaps God had not forsaken her after all; perhaps He was responding to the deepest need of her soul, and sent this woman to challenge her to live her life again. Not that Anna overly believed in God; He had abandoned the Arendelle's to their twisted fate a long time ago.

Anna didn't want to speak, not yet. Social convention would demand that she continue this conversation without delay, for to invite pause would be to invite doubt and uncertainty. But she put her first tentative trust in Wolff by remaining quiet, and actually thinking about what her nurse had just said.

And for a moment Anna allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to resume a normal life, as normal as it could be without Hans' constant influence. She would continue her work with the War Widows Fund, and play with the grandchildren in the library. She could go for long walks in the gardens, and snip her own bouquets as she had so enjoyed doing. She could dance again, even without the partner who had guided her steps for the last thirty years.

And bless her heart, Wolff waited, unspeaking. Giving Anna the gift of time and space. Such consideration was so rare; could this new nurse truly see Anna so deeply and so well this soon? Where had this woman learned such tactics?

Anna trembled on this precipice for long and aching moments. Pain began to intensify, radiating out from her head, bleeding down her back.

Still the silence reigned, fertile and golden.

And then Anna heard the ringing of the dinner gong, and it was a tsunami of icy water on her soft and meek muscles. She gave a violent start, closed her eyes, and put a hand to her temple. Her heart pounded thick and strong in shock, making a dire gong of her head. Only moments later there was a knock on the door, and she knew it was Gerda entering the room.

Anna opened her eyes to behold her loyal maid standing there. "My lady, will you be dressing for dinner?" her maid asked, as she must.

Anna looked at Wolff and allowed a fraction of her pain to appear in her eyes, in the stillness of her body.

It was a test. Just how deeply could Wolff truly see? How immured was she in the customs of nobility? Did she have a backbone, or not? Every other nurse had failed this test. They didn't see the truth. They saw only what Anna wanted them to see, and they always waited for Anna to make decisions. They bowed immediately to her power and station, exerting no force of their own.

It didn't surprise her, not really, that Wolff admirably rose to the occasion. "If it please your ladyship, perhaps you could take a dinner tray this evening here in your chambers, so that we may continue our conversation and conduct an initial examination."

Anna settled back slightly against the headboard. Inwardly she was smiling, but outwardly she only looked back at Gerda and said, "Please send my regrets to Lord and Lady Skaldenfoss, and bring up a tray for both Wolff and I when you are able."

"Of course, my lady." Gerda exited again, and Anna looked back at Wolff. Her therapist was sitting straight and tall in the chair near Anna's bed, a complex wash of emotions on her face.

Oh, yes, Elsa Wolff was a force to be reckoned with.

After some time passed in this perilous quiet, Wolff finally spoke again, saying, "What would you ask me, my lady, if you could ask any question at all?"

Anna wrapped her poor mind around the question. She found she had at least a hundred questions for her new nurse, but she barely dared to ask any of them. She felt a lump appear in her throat. Wolff sounded so confident, so genuine, that Anna could nearly believe her words.

What Wolff had said earlier still reverberated in her mind. Her wrist burned from Wolff's deliberate and soft touch.

My courage, I give to you, as I would give all good things to you.

So Anna sipped on the courage Wolff offered, and returned to the matter they had been discussing before the gong. Her question, when it emerged, was barely more than a whisper. "I want to believe you, Wolff. I want to believe that you can help me. But nothing has worked for eight long months. Even the laudanum has started to fail me. Wolff, are you speaking your truth, or are you just saying what you want me to hear?"

"Let me pass this trial by fire, my dearest lady," Wolff replied. "In only a month you will see the proof of my methods. Take thirty days and judge me then, to be free to choose me or dismiss me from your service. I would be your choice, Lady Skaldenfoss, and not someone foisted upon you by your well-meaning son."

An astonished smile finally appeared on Anna's lips. How had Wolff known?

And then her smile turned into a grimace, and her breath caught like barbs in her throat. For no reason at all, the muted pain that had been radiating down her head and spine suddenly grew claws and tore at her. Anna's eyes widened as she tried to absorb these bolts of agony, and for several moments she didn't move, and scarcely breathed.

Wolff leaned forward. "Tell me where, my lady. What is happening inside you?"

Anna had to close her eyes to Wolff's compassion, and she turned her head away. She was astonished at the insight of her new companion. It was as if the woman could see right through the fractured ramparts of her broken body.

"From my head, radiating down my back. It's like claws." She kept her eyes closed, unable to keep a soft whimper from escaping her lips as the pain continued to build in her body. She could only hear Wolff's movements, how she must have pulled the bell for Gerda.

It took several minutes for Gerda to respond; she must have been downstairs overseeing the trays for their dinner. In those minutes, Wolff bade Anna breathe as slowly and deeply as possible. She then pulled aside the covers atop Anna's feet and began to press and hold specific points upon them. Anna watched through eyes narrowed in pain, still distantly surprised that she could watch someone touch her feet and not feel a damned thing.

At least her legs were out of traction. Anna had hated the sight of her plastered and weighted legs in their pulleys and gears. It had taken six months to knit the bones of her legs and the fracture of her spine; six months of bedsores, humiliation and a near constant state of being drugged. Even this life, stilted and painful as it was, was a slight improvement on the old one.

So slight. So miniscule. Certainly not enough for her to give up her vision of the endless sea. Her lost children were waiting, though she supposed she would also have to see her husband there on the other side.

Gerda knocked and entered. Wolff's voice was crisp and professional. "Gerda, thank you for coming so swiftly. Do you have cotton flannel blankets, and a way to dry heat them?"

"Yes, I believe so, Miss Wolff."

"Could you please heat one up as hot as you can manage and bring it back here as soon as you can? In the meantime, I also require a hot water bladder. If you do not have one available, I will fetch the one from my kit."

"No, we have them available. My lady?" Gerda asked, looking to Anna for confirmation of carrying out these orders. Anna quickly nodded, wondering what Wolff intended.

Gerda left the room, and Wolff returned her attention to massaging Anna's unfeeling feet. She continued in this manner until Gerda returned with the hot water bladder, piping hot to the touch and covered with a thick kitchen towel. She murmured that she was still heating the blanket, and promised to return as soon as possible. Wolff asked her to hold back the dinner trays for a little while yet.

As soon as she was gone, Wolff looked up at Anna's face. "My lady, would you allow me to look at your lower back? I've spoken extensively with Dr. Lund and Mother Magda, but I would like to see the evidence of your accident and the subsequent surgeries."

Anna nodded, her breath still hissing through her lips. The pain was still ripping her up, like hooked knives being painstakingly drawn through the muscles and nerves of her lower back and up her spine.

It would never end. It could never end.

Anna was doomed.

Wolff rose from her place and gently helped Anna shift her position, laying her on her side facing the center of the bed. She stripped away the outer robe and encountered the solid expanse of Anna's shift. She pulled up the hem and quickly covered her exposed, wasted legs with the sheet, leaving bare only a small portion of her skin. Anna was grateful. She had no desire to be seen half naked by Gerda or anyone else, especially not her son, should he choose this inopportune moment to check on her.

Oh, to have a measure of privacy once more!

What was Wolff thinking as she looked at her? Anna felt ugly, gaunt, scarred and hideous. No more than a wraith next to this younger woman who practically glowed with health and deep-seated joy.

Anna shivered as Wolff touched the scars left behind by her three operations. Anna had seen them in mirrors, and knew they were pale, ribbed, and wide. And then she heard an almost inaudible whisper of empathy and compassion as Wolff murmured, "Oh, my dear one."

The compassion in Wolff's voice was a knife to Anna's heart. It would transect all the boundaries and barriers Anna tried so desperately to maintain in her damned stoic and stalwart manner. Wolff's compassion was a sword, not a dove, a gift that could not be received. Her compassion was a Trojan Horse, to reduce Anna to the same rubble and ruin as ancient Troy.

God damn her for her sympathy!

"Please don't," Anna whispered into the pillow, panting with pain. "Don't pity me, Miss Wolff."

A moment passed. She could hear Wolff swallow before she replied, and her voice was slightly hoarse as she said, "Oh, this is not pity, my lady. This… this is admiration."

Anna could not accept those words, either. Not while the claws continued to make ribbons of her nerves and muscles, claiming her strength, stealing her willpower. In this moment Anna had no hope left, no courage at all, for the fact remained that Wolff had conjured but a few hours of respite, and now Anna once again stood upon the crumbling precipice of agony and despair. There could be no permanent relief from this, not among the land of the living. Relief could only be found across the endless sea.

Willing herself not to weep, making fists of the sheets and trying to breathe as Wolff bade her, Anna suddenly felt the warm pressure of a hot water bladder against her neck and shoulders. Both the weight and the heat felt heavenly, and Anna melted into it. Wolff tucked the edges of the towel under her arms, and the bladder was held in place.

And with her hands Wolff urged Anna's upper body even closer to her bed, leaving Anna practically on her front. She could feel the gown being lifted all the way up to her shoulders, leaving bare her mid and lower back. Her jaw tight from clenching, Anna waited for what Wolff would do next. She honestly had no idea what Wolff's intention was, but she felt no fear or anxiety. She trusted Wolff already; the earlier respite had done that much at least.

And then Anna felt warm hands touching those ropy scars, soft pads of thumbs rubbing little circles over her sharp hip bones, accompanied by the slightly harder press of the heels of Wolff's palms. She must have put some oil on her hands, for her hands glided and slid along Anna's skin. Never in her life had Anna experienced this before. The first few moments of this strange pressure actually increased her agony, and she was about to cry out when her body relaxed under her, and the pain began to slowly recede.

"Shall I tell you about the primroses, my lady?" Wolff was quietly saying as she continued the gentle yet relentless circles of pressure swooping across her lower back. Anna listened to Wolff's voice as diligently as she would have clutched a lifesaving raft in the ocean. She held on to these words to distract her from the pain that ravaged her body, and once again she was astounded by Wolff's intuition.

How did this new nurse know that Anna needed to hold onto something more than cloth, than sheets?

"My dear, I've seen the primroses unfurl from a mound of the purest snow. Such gay little bulbs of flowers they are, purple and magenta in colour. Imagine them surrounded by darkness, crushed by snow, only the barest spark of life hibernating deep inside them. But when the creeks begin to run with snowmelt and the birds begin to sing their nest-building songs, these are the first flowers to climb their way out of the dark and the snow, they are the first to rejoice in the coming of the light. Oh, imagine the primroses, my dear, brilliant against the backdrop of melting snow, blanketing the alpine meadows of far mountains."

Anna listened to these words with her eyes closed, her fists tight in the sheets, and she listened as if her very life depended on the words, as if her hope and salvation were to be found within.

And never in her life had anyone rubbed her back quite like this; Wolff's hands were slick and warm as they endlessly swooped along Anna's skin, focusing with gentle intensity on certain points over her hips and along her once-broken spine. Anna could actually feel her nerves aligning again, and her muscles were loosening as well, giving up their ghosts of pain. Yet while she felt Wolff's hot hands on her naked back, she could see the primroses blooming, she could imagine them like a great ocean of purple on the slopes of far mountains.

The words evoked a memory of visiting her mother's family estate near Exeter, in England. Her grandfather's garden had long beds of brilliant tulips, imported from Holland; they looked like a rainbow had touched the earth. Anna had loved those tulips, so soft and demure they could be, yet so triumphant and strong!

Anna sank into the memory of tulips as she sank deeper into her mattress, and into this strange and unbelievable treatment that somehow turned her pain into muted pleasure. She was barely aware that Gerda had returned, bearing the heated flannel blanket. When the door closed again, Wolff lifted her gown even higher, placing the blanket on her lower back, and then began to work on her heated neck and shoulder muscles.

Another memory came ghosting towards her; Anna caught the roots of it, and spun it to the front of her mind. Soft she tugged, and the fullness of the memory eventually came, as if it had been deeply buried in her mind.

There had been other tulips, more beloved tulips, which had decorated the grounds of the boarding school outside London that Anna had called home for the six years of her adolescence, from age eleven to seventeen.

She had grown up in Norway, but her English mother had insisted on a proper English education. Oh, forty years ago it was, when she had seen those tulips under a starry night sky.

In her memory she smelled spring, and wet black earth. She saw her breath rise in the chilly night air, she felt the flood of adrenaline in her veins as she and her companion escaped the notice of the matrons.

Then Anna remembered lips pressing against hers, the only kiss she had ever received from someone other than her husband, Hans.

Anna had not thought of that kiss in decades. The sudden emergence of it, as if it also had erupted from soft black earth, surprised her back into the present moment.

Anna took a deep breath and realized that she had released her death grip on the sheets. Somehow between the primroses, the tulips, the press of Wolff's oiled hands, and the memory of the mouth of a beloved lost one the pain had disappeared.

Wolff breathed with her, and bent down close to her.

Her hot fingers caressed Anna's neck, and then she heard Wolff's voice, wildly inappropriate yet so velvet, so incredibly sweet.

"That's my girl."