Chapter 13: Two Houses

Gareth did not deny it a second time.

He stood with both hands flat on the desk, and the lamp showed every gray hair at his temples.

Nobody in the study spoke.

"Say it out loud," I told him. "Say it so the Elders hear."

"She is mine," he said. "Cora is my daughter."

On the couch, Cora turned her face to the wall.

"I kept two houses," Gareth said. "One with you, and one at the edge of the grounds with her mother."

"For twenty-three years."

"I wanted both. I was the Alpha, and I took both."

The healer put a hand over her mouth.

One of the Elders said, very quietly, "Goddess forgive us."

"You let me hold her at her naming," I said. "You let me give her a doll."

"You were kind to her."

"I was kind to her because I thought she was a poor widow's child!"

My voice cracked off the walls.

"Tilda had a sister down the lane for twenty-three years, and you never let her know."

"I couldn't name her," he said. "The pack would have called her shame. I couldn't give her the house. I couldn't give her the seat."

"So you gave her mine."

His jaw moved.

"Tell them about the pillar," I said.

"Linnea."

"Tell them what I spent five years filling."

He looked at the Elders, and then at Rowan in the doorway, and he saw there was nobody left in the room to lie to.

"The pillar was never for the pack," he said.

"The Goddess's shield was a story. It would have held a hundred years, yes, but that was not what it was for."

"A Luna's five years of offerings fill it. When it's full, the Goddess blesses whoever stands at the Alpha's side."

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