I Bore His Heirs, Then I Vanished novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Mantle
Aldric's POV
The Moon Gathering was held in the open yard of the pack house, under a full moon so bright the torches looked pale.
Every wolf of Duskmoor was there, six hundred of them, standing in rings by family.
Delphine stood on the top step where Morven had rejected me.
She wore white and a circlet of braided silver, and she looked at me coming through the gates with my side bandaged and her dagger scar across my palm.
"My husband," she said warmly, over the yard. "You've come home. Thank the Mother."
"I'm not your husband," I said.
A murmur went through the rings.
I walked up the steps past her, and I did not look at her.
At the top I turned and took off the Alpha's mantle.
It was black wolf fur with a silver clasp. My father had worn it, and my father's father before him.
It was heavy. I had never noticed it until I took it off.
"Duskmoor," I said.
The yard went quiet.
"I am laying down the mantle tonight. Before you decide what to do with it, you will hear whose it was."
"Aldric," Delphine said softly. "You're unwell. The wound has gone to your head."
"Be quiet, Delphine."
I had never said that to her in my life.
She closed her mouth.
"Twenty-seven years ago my father crossed the border in a night war," I said. "You call it the Winter Bite. The old songs say the pack chose him, and that the Alpha of Ashenfell was weak."
"He was!" someone shouted from the crowd.
"He was asleep," I said. "In his own hall, with his wife and his sons. My father killed them in their beds. He renamed the pack, and he took the seat."
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