Chapter 28: The Choice

Nobody in the cathedral moved.

Lydia stood with her arm still outstretched, shaking, and her whole sash was crooked.

"Say it," she told Eamon. "Tell them. You swore six years ago you would make me Luna."

"I swore it to a woman who was in a cell," Eamon said. "She doesn't exist."

"I'm standing here!"

"You're standing there in white, in my house, over Hazel's empty grave."

His voice was very quiet.

"You poisoned my soldiers. You poisoned her."

"She isn't your mate!" Lydia said. "She rejected you! The whole territory watched her do it!"

She was right.

I heard a murmur of agreement from the pews, uneasy, and I knew what they were all thinking.

The bond had been cut on this stage by my own mouth.

Eamon looked at me.

It was a look I had never seen on him: nothing held back, and nothing asked.

"She's right," he said to the cathedral, but his eyes stayed on me. "Hazel Brennan rejected me, and I earned it."

"I won't claim a bond she cut."

"I won't ask her to take me back, and I won't call her Luna."

"She is a doctor. She is the best one I have, and she is free."

Behind me, I heard Marla blow her nose.

I turned and faced the rows.

Two thousand wolves, a ceiling of blue glass, my parents in the front row with their hands locked together.

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