They Made Me Hunt For My Own Wedding novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Order

Eli's POV

The Council's clerk arrived at the Corwin gate on Monday morning, in a black car, with a sealed paper and three elders behind him.

I was in the yard with a mug of Sabine's bad coffee when I saw the car.

I knew what the paper was before the clerk got out.

"Warden Garrow," he said. "By order of the Moon Council."

He held out the envelope.

I did not take it.

"Read it."

He cleared his throat.

"The Chosen of the Corwin pack is to be conveyed to the Council hall within three days, to be seated among the Council's own. The Warden of the Kettle River line is to deliver her, under his oath. A Warden may not bond with a Chosen, as his duty to her must stand above his wish. He is to renounce any claim, and he is to take up the line at Black Pine, three hundred miles from the river."

The yard had gone quiet.

Gray stood on the porch.

Emmett sat on the step with his hands between his knees.

Sabine was coming out the front door with her hair wet and her sleeves pushed up.

She stopped on the top step.

She did not need to ask.

I could feel her in the bond, a hot, steady pressure behind my sternum.

"Three days," the clerk said to her, and for the first time he had the grace to look away. "The Council asks it with respect."

"The Council asks," she said.

"Yes."

"The Council that called Opal's mother out of Cinder Creek at dusk and left a pack to burn?"

The clerk's mouth tightened.

One of the elders, a gaunt woman with a cane, stepped forward.

"You will come to us, child," she said. "You are the first Chosen in twenty-five years. We have a seat for you."

"A cage for me," Sabine said.

"A seat."

I put the mug down on the porch rail.

I had sworn the Warden's oath at twenty-two, with my left arm still bandaged from the fire that burned it.

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