The Day We Lost Our Pups, We Left Our Alphas novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Before the Pack

Teagan and Roz refuse their mates in the breakfast hall. The Alpha will not witness, and says the pups are buried.

The Alpha came down the drive himself and told the wolves to open the gate.

"Let them in," Orson said. "They're grieving. Grief belongs at home."

He opened his arms to me as I came through.

I stepped around him.

The whole pack was in the breakfast hall. Two hundred wolves at long tables, with plates in front of them nobody had touched, and every face turned to the door.

Conall stood by the Alpha's chair with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

He hadn't slept.

I had been married to him for fourteen months, and I knew the way he held his hands when he was sure he was right.

He was holding them like that now.

"Teagan," he said. "Thank God. Vera's been asking for you since morning. She was so worried."

Devon pushed through a knot of patrol wolves and stopped in front of Roz.

He was a head taller than she was.

"You scared the whole pack," he said. "Do you know what you put my father through?"

Roz looked up at him.

"I lost her, Devon."

"Roz..."

"I lost our daughter, and you told me I was lying about the bleeding."

"I told you to wait. Vera was..."

"Say her name one more time."

He closed his mouth.

I walked up to the head table. My legs didn't want to hold me, so I put one hand on the wood.

"I have something to say to the pack," I said. "Roz has the same thing to say. We are going to say it now."

The hall went quiet.

"Teagan, not like this," Conall said.

"The law says a mate can refuse the bond in front of the pack, with the Alpha as witness."

I looked at Orson.

"I'm the one asking him to witness."

"Don't be foolish," Orson said gently. "Sit. Eat. We'll bury the pups together this week, as a family."

"I, Teagan Hartley, refuse the bond with Conall McIntyre," I said.

The whole hall drew breath.

"Teagan," Conall said.

"I, Roz Lafferty," said Roz beside me, loud enough to carry to the back tables, "refuse the bond with Devon McIntyre."

Devon flinched.

"Our rings are on a hospital tray in Tamarack," I said. "You can send someone for them."

"The Alpha has not witnessed," said Orson.

He did not raise his voice.

"Under the law, a refusal stands only when the Alpha witnesses it. I decline. You are not in your right minds, either of you. I will not let two bereaved girls break the pack's marriages on the worst day of their lives."

"Then the elder rules after three days," Roz said. "I read the same book you did."

A very old wolf at the back table, with a cane across her knees, lifted her head.

Nobody looked at her.

I put my hand in the plastic bag I'd carried from the hospital and took out the folded discharge summary.

I set it on the table in front of Conall.

"Read it."

"Teagan, I don't need to."

"You were the best emergency healer in this pack. Read what it says."

He picked it up.

The hall was so quiet I could hear the paper.

"Placental abruption," I said. "I had maybe ten minutes. Roz had less. I was on the phone with you for two of them, and you told me to stop using our daughter to keep you from Vera."

His eyes went down the page.

I watched the color leave his face.

"The surgeon wrote that the bleed was visible from the first scan," I said. "Your vitals were stable at breakfast, Conall. They were stable until the truck hit us."

"I didn't know," he said.

"You didn't ask."

"Teagan, I was..."

Behind him, a chair scraped.

Vera was standing at the end of the head table with her hand on her stomach, and she swayed.

She said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I just feel..."

She sat down hard.

Conall dropped the paper.

He was across the room before it hit the table, one hand on her wrist, the other under her chin.

"Breathe, Vera, look at me. Devon, get water."

Devon did.

He went to the water pitcher instead of the woman in front of him, and Roz watched him go.

I stood at the table and looked at my husband kneeling beside another woman.

The summary lay open on the floor.

Nobody picked it up.

"Orson," I said. "Where are our children?"

"Buried, my dear," the Alpha said. "In the family grove, beside my son."

"I want to see the grave."

"You will. After the mourning week is done." He smiled at me, kind and tired. "Pack custom, Teagan. Nobody visits a new grave before the seventh day."

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