Marked by My Ex's Biggest Rival novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Her Mark

"Depends," I said. "What do you think it is?"

He looked down at the drawing.

"I think it's my arm," he said slowly. "With the branch you never finished. And I think that ring isn't on the arm."

"No."

"It's on a neck."

"It's on your neck."

He set the paper down on the table very carefully, the way he'd shut the ledger in the archive.

"She-wolves don't mark," he said. "It's never been done. It's the man's gift."

"Everybody said that about the ink too."

He didn't say anything.

I got out of bed in his shirt and went and stood between his knees.

"You asked me on that riverbank," I said. "With my heart burning out. You asked, and then you waited for an answer. Nobody had ever done that." I touched the side of his neck, where it met his shoulder. "I want to ask you back. In front of everybody. And I want you to have one too."

His throat moved under my fingers.

"Danica."

"Don't answer now," I said. "Answer at the clearing."

The next full moon came up on the last Thursday of November, white and huge over a foot of fresh snow.

I'd designed every part of it.

No Council. No elders' speeches. No assignments.

Just both packs, and the fire, and Gran's strip.

They came across the river on the shallow stones a mile upstream, Brannigans first, with lanterns.

The Yardley wolves came down the path from the packhouse to meet them.

Nobody had crossed the Larch in a crowd since before Roark's father died.

They stood together in a ring around the stone border, two packs mixed up together, stamping their boots in the snow.

The old woman was there in her pink cardigan, under four blankets, in her wheelchair.

Gran's friend had brought her thermos.

Krista was in charge of the playlist and had been told firmly that there would be no playlist.

Addison stood at the front with a lantern, the silver crescent over her heart glowing through her open collar.

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