He Rejected Me the Night I Birthed His Twins novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: Rhoda of No House

"You don't get to see them," I said.

Rhoda tipped her head.

"That's a pity. I brought a gift."

"Keep it."

"You haven't heard it."

"I know what it is. You've never given me anything that wasn't a leash."

She smiled again, thinly.

Behind her, along the Black Fir bank, wolves had begun to gather in the dusk.

They stood in rows on the road, bruised and silent, people who had torn at each other the night before.

On the Ironwood side, Torin's forty stood in their own line.

Both packs had come to watch.

Rhoda knew it, and she raised her voice to carry.

"Here is my offer," she said. "You come home. You take the Luna's chair with your children in your arms, and Cedric kneels to you in front of the pack. The glasshouse is yours. The house is yours. That girl in the silver gown never comes near you again."

"And in exchange?"

"You hold the pack. That's all I ask. You keep them from tearing one another apart."

"That's all."

"It's what you were born for."

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

"You drugged me for seventeen years so I couldn't hold it," I said. "And now it's what I was born for."

"Choose what you like, dear." Her voice stayed sweet. "But you saw last night. You know what comes at midwinter. Children will die on that hill, and you will have let them, because you wanted your pride."

Torin growled, very low.

I put a hand on his arm.

"Rhoda," I said. "I have a question."

"Ask it."

"Where is my mother?"

Her face did not change.

But I felt it in Ember, a sudden stir, hot and alert.

"She died," Rhoda said. "You were eight. Everyone knows that."

"She had gold eyes."

"A trick of the light."

"Ember remembers the night before she died," I said. "My mother was awake. She was packing a bag. She told my wolf to run."

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