Fate Picked Me, the Alpha Passed, and I Felt Nothing novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Vote

On the first Saturday of November the pack hall was so full that people stood three deep along the walls.

I stood at the back again, in my good flannel and my boots.

The keeper sat in the second row in her grey shawl with a cane across her knees.

Nobody had noticed her come in.

Hume had been talking for ten minutes.

He had a clean new paper and a patient voice, and he said the word unfit.

When he said, "By January," I walked up the center aisle.

Heads turned.

I heard my own boots on the boards.

"Miss Tolland," Hume said, mild. "This is a council matter."

"It's my bond," I said. "I think I get to speak."

I stopped at the lectern and put both hands on the wood.

Seventy-four faces looked up at me.

"My name is Rue Tolland," I said. "The moon named me fated mate of Dray Wetherell. He refused me. You all saw it."

Nobody moved.

"Everybody in this room thinks the refusal cut the bond at both ends. It didn't."

A murmur went across the hall.

"It cut one end only, and I can prove it. The proof is sitting in this room."

The murmur grew.

"He isn't going feral," I said. "He's been sick because he was too far from me."

I looked at Hume.

"He was never a danger to anyone. He came to my door at two in the morning because it was the only place he could stand."

A few people laughed, shocked.

"How do you know this?" Hume said sharply.

"Because I asked someone who would know."

I looked at the second row.

The keeper stood up.

She did it slowly, with both hands on her cane, and the hall went dead silent.

"The carpenter is right," she said. Her voice was dry and small and every word carried. "A refusal cuts the refused end. It has happened twice in my life."

She turned her head and looked at Hume.

"The first time was in this hall, fifty years ago."

She tapped the cane once.

"I said nothing that day. I have kept quiet for fifty years, and I am done."

Hume's face did not change.

His hand tightened on the paper.

"He has known the law for fifty years," the keeper said. "He has told you the opposite for nine."

The silence broke.

Somebody shouted. Someone else stood. A chair scraped.

Joss rose from the front table to his full height, which was considerable.

"Garland," he said. "Is that true?"

"I was a child," Hume said. "Memory is."

"Is it true?"

"I was protecting the pack. A pack that fears its Alpha's refusal is a pack that keeps its Alpha honest."

"You told them he'd go feral."

"I said he might."

"You said he would," I said. "You posted it on the door."

He looked at me then, and for the first time his pale eyes lost their politeness.

"You've made a mistake, girl," he said quietly.

"Possibly. But I haven't lied to seventy-four people."

Joss called the vote.

The first question was whether the Alpha was fit.

Every hand went up.

It was not a count. It was a wall of arms.

Old men, teenagers, the woman from the hardware store and the man who ran the marina all raised them.

There was nothing in the room but hands.

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