Chapter 10: What the Old Man Spun

Rodrick's POV

She said no, and I gave her the whole lodge.

I sat outside her door until dark, and she did not open it.

Then I took my coat and my knife, and I walked out into the snow.

I had known since the Gathering, four years ago.

I had stood across a bonfire from a girl of eighteen with a bow on her back.

My wolf had gone down on his belly in my chest and refused to get up.

I had watched Dalton Henshaw hand her a cup.

I had smelled her change in the time it took her to swallow.

I did nothing.

I told myself she had chosen him.

I told myself a girl of eighteen was owed her own choice.

I told myself a MacAlister Alpha with a pack that small did not walk onto Henshaw land and take her off Henshaw's arm.

It was a good excuse.

I had used it for four years.

Tonight I would stop using it.

I shifted at the tree line and ran down the mountain on four legs, and the cold went over my fur.

The Henshaw spice-healer lived in a one-room cabin a quarter mile behind the Hall.

Dalton kept him there, close and watched.

Two Henshaw wolves sat on the cabin's porch in the dark, and they knew me before I was out of the trees.

"MacAlister," the nearer one said. "That's far enough."

I changed on the path, naked and angry.

"I need a word with the old man."

"No."

"Then I'll go through you."

The nearer wolf drew a knife.

It was a fair fight, and I will not pretend I enjoyed it.

I put the first one into the porch rail.

The second one opened my side from the ribs to the hip with a Henshaw hunting blade.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Mate and Family's Choice from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.