Chapter 32: The Second Harvest Moon

On the night of the next Harvest Moon, I came in by the front door of the Black Fir pack house.

The big oak doors stood wide.

Every light in the hall was lit, and three hundred wolves stood in the ballroom in their good clothes.

They turned when I came in.

I wore dark green, cut plain, with no silver anywhere on it.

Torin walked a half step behind my shoulder, in a black suit that did not fit him and that he hated.

On my left hip I carried Hazel.

On my right, the housekeeper carried Alder, who had walked three steps on Tuesday and now considered himself above carrying.

Nobody curtsied.

Nobody announced us.

A woman near the door only held up her glass, and said, "Welcome home," and the whole room said it with her.

I had to stop for a moment.

Torin's hand found the small of my back.

It rested there, light, with room in it.

"You're all right," he murmured.

"I know."

"I'm only saying it."

"Say it again later."

We crossed the floor.

It was the same polished floor, with the same long windows over the ridge.

Upstairs, a year ago, I had lain on the bathroom tiles and listened to this room sing.

I did not think about it long.

Outside the tall glass, on the east lawn, a lone figure in a canvas apron knelt in the dark.

She was working the soil between the lily pots with a trowel.

She was thin and her hair was white.

A young gardener stood over her with a lantern.

She did not look up.

I did not wave.

"There," Torin said quietly. "That's the last of it."

"The last of her."

"The last of everything."

I held my daughter closer.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Rejected Me the Night I Birthed His Twins from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.