Her Brothers Scented Me at the Gate, Now All Three Claim Me novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Her Terms

On the last Saturday of October, the pack came to the Moon Stone without torches.

They came in daylight, in their good coats, with children on their shoulders.

The lake lay pale and flat behind the rock, and somebody had swept the white cloth away.

Where it had been, the stone was bare and warm in the sun.

I stood at the edge of it with Linnea fixing my braid for the fourth time.

"Stop," I said.

"Hold still. You've got a leaf."

"I don't have a leaf."

"You will."

She stepped back and looked at me, and her mouth started to wobble.

"I put pine oil on you for seven years," she said. "And you're getting married in front of the whole pack in a green jacket."

"I'm getting mated," I said. "Marriage is paperwork."

"That's the worst thing you've ever said, and I love it."

She kissed my cheek hard and went to stand beside her father.

Garrick wore his wool cardigan and a clean shirt under it.

In his hand he held a small, flat piece of granite with letters cut into it.

I walked out onto the Stone alone.

I had asked for that.

The three of them waited at the center, dressed in plain dark shirts, with their hands at their sides.

None of them touched me.

I stopped in front of them and took out the paper I had folded small in my pocket.

"I wrote my terms," I said. "The pack can hear them. So can you."

My voice shook, and I let it.

"One. Nobody touches me until I say. I will say yes a great deal. I keep the right to say stop, and any of you who doesn't hear it can sleep in the barn."

Beck's mouth twitched.

"Two. Nobody lies to me. I'll hold myself to the same, and if I forget, you tell me."

"Three. Nobody fights over me. I'm not a prize. If there's a quarrel, we have it in the kitchen, with food."

"Four." I looked up. "I keep my work. I'll be the vet for this pack and the town, and some mornings I'll come home smelling of cow."

"Five."

I stopped, because my throat had closed.

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