The Daughter They Didn't Want novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Blood in the Clasp

Rowan and Northlake wolves find the cabin and claim her blood in the clasp holds her until Thursday's moon-reading. Ash tells her there is one answer: he is her mate.

"It lit up," I said. "Two seconds. Why does that matter?"

Headlights flared in the mirror before he answered.

"Not now," Ash said, and floored it.

The road ended at a log cabin on a rise above a black pond, with one yellow bulb over the porch.

A grey truck was already parked in the yard.

"Somebody knows a shortcut," Ash muttered.

Rowan stood on the porch steps with his hands in his coat pockets.

Anders leaned against the truck behind him, and four Northlake wolves fanned out across the grass with flashlights.

They had my ceremony bracelet.

I saw it in Rowan's fingers, swinging from the clasp, small and silver under the porch bulb.

Ash cut the engine and got out first.

I followed him, barefoot in the cold dirt, because I had left my shoes somewhere in the pack hall.

"Sigrid," Rowan said, in the warm voice from the hall. "There you are. You've had a long day and you're upset. Come home and we'll talk this out."

"I am home," I said. "Or I'm not. You're the one who heard Dad strike my name."

His smile stayed in place.

"Your father spoke in anger. It happens. But you need to understand something, and I want you to hear it calmly."

He lifted the bracelet.

"Your blood is in this clasp. Under pack custom that holds your vow until the Moon-reader reads it Thursday at moonrise. Three nights. Until then, legally and in every way that counts, you're mine."

"I never said the words."

"You didn't have to. The clasp closed on your wrist, in front of two hundred witnesses."

My finger throbbed where Mom's pin had gone in.

The tradition, the luck, the little smile.

I looked at the bracelet, and I thought of the hall full of people reading a price tag.

I laughed.

"Is that the part you're proud of?" I said. "Say it louder, Rowan. Your wolves came all this way."

I turned to the four of them.

"Go on," I said. "Read the inside of what he's holding. The part my mother picked out for me."

Nobody moved.

"Twelve ninety-nine," I said. "It's still stuck on. My sister got platinum and four moonstones. I got something from the rack beside the cash register."

One of the younger wolves looked down fast.

Another cleared his throat and studied the pond.

Anders kept his eyes on his shoes and went red to the ears.

"It's jewelry," Rowan snapped. "The custom doesn't care what it costs."

"You told me everything was arranged," I said. "Money, pack, my sister's health. You said all I had to do was smile."

"Sigrid."

"My account has zero dollars in it. Did you know that when you said it?"

For half a second his face went blank.

That told me more than anything he could have said.

Ash stepped between us.

He did it slowly, without raising his voice, and he stood square in front of me.

"She said no at the Stone," he said. "Everybody heard it. Walk back to your truck."

"Walk back?" Rowan laughed. "Dad said if you touch her, you lose your lake share. All of it. You didn't ask for any of that when you left. Are you going to start now?"

"Then I lose it."

"You can't void a clasp, Ash. Only the Moon-reader can. Thursday." Rowan's gaze slid sideways to me. "Or a mate's mark, I suppose. But nobody gets that lucky, do they? Fated mates are a story we tell to children."

Ash didn't answer.

His eyes had gone a flat, burning gold in the porch light.

The wolves at the edge of the grass shifted their feet.

I felt it run through them, the old animal quiet that comes when an Alpha's son stops being polite.

"Row," Anders said, low and miserable. "She's barefoot. She's shaking. Let's go."

"Shut up, Anders."

"I'm going," Anders said, and for the first time since I had known him, he didn't sound like he was asking.

He looked at me for a second with shame.

Then he got into the truck.

Rowan watched him go.

He tossed my bracelet in the air, caught it, and tucked it into his coat.

"Thursday at moonrise, Sigrid. Come say it properly, or I take what's mine in front of both packs."

He went down the steps, and the wolves went with him.

The grey truck backed out, and the taillights bobbed away down the road and were gone.

Ash stood still until the engine sounds faded.

Then I watched him unclench his hands, one finger at a time.

I went up the porch steps on legs that did not feel like mine, and he opened the cabin door for me.

Inside it was warm, with a woodstove and a plaid couch and a kitchen table with one chair pulled out.

He shut the door and locked it.

"He said there was one answer to a clasp," I said. "A mate's mark."

"Sigrid."

"You went quiet. You went completely quiet. So say it."

Ash turned around.

His eyes had gone back to grey, and he looked at me.

"I'm your mate," he said. "I've known since the night you turned eighteen."

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