Married My Alpha's Brother novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Keys

Jagger gives Rae's infirmary to Shayla's coven healer, so Rae walks out with her kit and her patients and opens a clinic in Granger's barn, until the Elder posts a notice that Granger's claim dies in six weeks.

"Our crest," I said. "Blackburn."

"The wolf's head. Etched on the flat of the steel." He looked at the wall. "I saw it when it came out of me."

"Somebody behind you was carrying a Blackburn knife."

"The blade snapped on my hip bone. The tip's still up at the pass, under three months of dirt."

"And you told nobody."

"Tell them what? There are two Blackburns left. One of them was lying in the snow."

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

I didn't say Jagger's name.

Neither did he.

I didn't sleep much. I took the couch, and the couch was eight inches too short for anyone.

At six, something hissed in a pan.

I walked out to find my husband at the stove in his chair, cracking eggs one-handed.

"You cook," I said.

"I eat. Cooking is how the eggs get there."

He slid a plate across the counter. The eggs were perfect. The toast was black.

"The toaster's an Alpha," he said. "It does what it wants."

"So does the cook. I like my eggs scrambled."

"Then you should have married a man who scrambles."

"I was working with a short list."

He almost smiled. He caught it and put it away.

There was a knock.

When I opened the door, my old canvas duffel sat on the porch.

My clothes, my good boots, my mother's photo in its tin frame.

Down the gravel road, my father's truck was already turning onto the highway.

He hadn't knocked twice.

I was pulling on my jeans when the Gamma came up the ramp.

"Rae." He held his cap in both hands. "You'd better get to the infirmary. He's giving your keys away."

The east wing smelled of somebody else's incense.

Twelve beds, twelve patients, and every one of them was watching the door.

Jagger stood in the middle of the ward in a fresh shirt. Shayla stood beside him.

With them was a thin woman in a long gray coat, silver rings on every finger.

Her hair smelled like smoke and sage.

Jagger held up my key ring. The brass tag still said INFIRMARY in my handwriting.

"This is the coven's healer," he told the room. "Shayla brought her from Alberta. She'll run the ward now."

The healer took my keys without looking at me.

"She's not licensed in Montana," I said.

"She's not human either," Jagger said. "So she won't be needing a license."

Shayla had a clipboard. My clipboard.

"Wanda Starkey," she read. "Seventy-one. Bad hip. Discharged."

Wanda sat up in bed six. "I can't walk to the bathroom, girl."

"Then crawl." Shayla turned the page. "The one-eyed one. Discharged. The kid with the burned arm. Discharged. Ankle in pins. Discharged."

She looked up at me and smiled.

"The coven doesn't waste beds on wolves who'll never fight again."

The young warrior with the burned arm was nineteen. I'd peeled his sleeve off him myself after the war.

He was trying very hard not to cry.

I walked past Jagger.

I walked past Shayla.

I went to the cabinet by the window, took down my steel kit case, and opened it on the nearest bed.

Everything was still there. My suture kits. My scissors. My mother's old stethoscope.

"That's pack property," Jagger said.

"I bought every piece of it with my own paycheck. Ask your treasurer."

I snapped it shut and turned to the ward.

"Anybody she just threw out," I said, "comes with me."

Wanda was already reaching for her cane.

"Come with you where?" Jagger laughed. "You've got nothing, Rae."

"I've got a barn."

It took us an hour. The one-eyed warrior carried Wanda piggyback down the gravel road, cursing every step. She cursed him back.

The barn had four stalls, a hayloft and a hundred years of dust.

We swept it out. We hauled the old cots from Granger's woodshed. We hung a bedsheet for a curtain.

By noon I had four patients in four clean stalls, and a sign on the door that said CLINIC in black marker.

Granger rolled to the door at one and looked it over.

"You've put my grandfather's horses' names on the stalls."

"They were already painted there."

"Wanda's in Thunder."

"Wanda," I said, "is absolutely in Thunder."

From behind the bedsheet, Wanda said something filthy about horses.

Granger laughed out loud. The one-eyed warrior stared at him like he'd never heard the sound.

At sunset, gravel crunched on the road.

The Elder came down the hill alone, on foot, with a hammer and a folded sheet of paper.

He didn't come to the barn.

He went up Granger's ramp, unfolded the paper against the cabin door, and nailed it there with four hard strokes.

The whole hill heard it.

Then he looked at me across the yard and walked back up toward the Lodge.

I crossed the yard and read it.

At the Hunter's Moon, six weeks from tonight, the Eclipse Pack will confirm Jagger Blackburn as Alpha for life.

The heir's claim dies at moonrise, unless the heir answers and runs.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend