My Son Is the Secret That Will Break Them novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Chosen

I opened my mother's letter on the morning of the new moon, sitting on the end of the bed in the riverside house with my veil in my lap.

Torin had given it to me the day we got back from Los Angeles, and I had carried it unopened for a week.

It was one page, in her looping, uneven hand.

*Thea. If you're reading this, you're getting married, or you're in trouble, and either way I wish I were there.*

*The Maddox men are slow and they are honest. Torin looks at you when you're not looking. I have watched him do it for years, and neither of you knew.*

*Let him be slow. Make him say it out loud. I love you more than anything I've done. Mom.*

I read it three times.

Then I folded it, and put it in the bodice of my dress, and went downstairs to be married.

The pack hall had been cleaned for the new moon.

Cedar boughs hung from the rafters, and every bench was full, and the crest over the door had been polished until it shone.

The eldest stood on the dais, with the old healer beside him holding the claims book open.

Torin waited in front of the dais in a black coat, with a white shirt buttoned to the throat.

His hands were shaking.

Arlo walked ahead of me down the aisle in a tiny waistcoat, carrying the rings on a cushion, with his whole face set in concentration.

He did not fall asleep.

He handed the cushion to Rowan, said, "Don't drop them," and sat down on the investigator's knee.

I reached the dais.

Torin looked at me, and I saw that he was trying not to cry in front of his pack and failing.

"You read the vows," he said, low.

"Twice."

"And?"

"I have notes."

The hall laughed, and he did too, and it eased.

The eldest read the law, and it was shorter than I'd feared.

A claim made by one wolf, and chosen by the other, is a mating.

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