Chapter 24: The Mark Moon

"Signed Bridger," Noreen read. "Witnessed, Coy Jessup. Paid in full tonight, by the bride."

She lowered the paper and looked at the Bridger side of the ring.

"Where is she?"

Nobody answered her.

Coy stood beside his mother in a white shirt with the collar already open on one shoulder.

Ready for the bite.

"The bride's family will bring the bride," Noreen said. "Or the marker comes due at midnight, and every acre on Crooked Creek comes with it."

Behind me, Kacey slid down off the grulla.

She landed hard and caught herself on my stirrup.

"Kacey," I said.

"I know." Her face was white in the moonlight. "I know. I'm going."

She walked out of the timber alone.

The Jessups saw her first. The murmur went around the ring.

She stepped over the white stones into the lantern light, in her clinic hoodie and her muck boots.

"Here I am," she said.

Noreen smiled.

"Good girl. Coy."

Coy took a step toward her.

Kacey put her hand up flat, the way I'd shown her to stop a horse.

He stopped.

"I walk back my vows," Kacey said.

Every wolf on that bench went silent.

"By the old law," she said. Her voice shook, and then it didn't. "Before the bite, in front of both packs. This house bound me with a lie."

Noreen laughed.

It was a pretty laugh. She'd practiced it at a hundred Sunday suppers.

"Then name the lie, sweetheart. And prove it. Or step up and bare your shoulder."

"I'll prove it," I said.

I walked out of the trees on foot.

Rance had pressed the tracing sheet into my hand without a word. It was warm from his coat.

The Jessups turned to look at me.

A few of them growled. Most of them just stared.

The last time they'd seen me, I was sitting at Noreen's right hand.

I stepped over the stones and stood beside Kacey.

"Give me the marker, Noreen."

"I don't think so."

"Then hold it up yourself. Right there, to the lantern."

She didn't move.

The foreman came out of the Jessup line.

He took the marker out of her fingers, gently, and handed it to me.

I held it up against the lantern.

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