Chapter 5: What Odessa Said

"I'm not going home," I said.

"You are," Dalton said. "You're being stubborn."

He tried to step past me into the cottage.

Lucan did not touch him.

He only moved a half step to the side, and the doorway was full.

Dalton looked up at him and swallowed.

"Eloise," he said, quieter. "Please. Let's not do this in front of the whole road."

Behind him, two figures were coming down the gravel with a lantern.

I knew both of them.

One was the oldest elder of Ember Ridge, who had been at my wedding.

The other was the elder who kept the pack's grain stores, and who had never once looked me in the eye.

Odessa had brought witnesses.

I understood that at once, and I felt strangely calm.

"Then let's do it in front of them," I said, and stepped out onto the porch.

The cold hit my face.

Hattie moved up beside me and held the lantern high.

"Dalton wants to say something," I told the elders. "Please listen."

Dalton looked at the two old men, then at me.

His mouth opened, and what came out was not what he had planned.

"The mistress thing was for the pack," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"For the pack's sake. You know how the elders get about a Luna leaving. I thought if you stayed in the east wing, nobody would panic."

"You thought I'd stay in the east wing so nobody would panic," I said.

"Yes."

"While you married her."

"I'm not marrying her. She's my mate. It's different."

"Is that what you told her?"

Dalton's face twisted.

"Eloise. I need you."

"You need the books."

"I need you," he said, and for a second I almost believed him.

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