They Made Me Hunt For My Own Wedding novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Fire on the Island
Eli's POV
I took the bog at a run, and my wolf took it faster.
It was six miles, and I did not feel one of them.
The orange was in the sky long before I reached the reeds.
By the time I came out of the trees I could taste the smoke.
The peat was burning in a ring around the island, low and red, with white smoke boiling off it.
A wooden causeway ran across the black water to the stones, and Opal had set it alight at the near end.
I crossed it anyway, with the planks hissing under my boots.
She was standing on the island in her pale blue dress.
She had waded in to her knees, and her hair was down and wet, and there was a red can at her feet.
Fuel ran dark across the grass in lines she had drawn between the stones.
In her right hand she held a thin silver crescent.
It was my pin, the one I had set into the slab as the ward.
"You came fast," she said.
She sounded like herself, tired and kind.
"Put it down, Opal."
"They'd have kept it, you know. The Council. It was never going to be hers alone." She lifted the pin and turned it so the fire caught it. "She'd have gone away, Eli. They always go. They stand in the stones and the Council calls, and a pack is left with a bed to burn."
"Is that why you did it?"
"My mother was the Chosen of Cinder Creek." Opal smiled at the pin. "She walked out of our house at dusk because the Council summoned her. I was eight. I watched the whole pack burn from a ditch by the road."
Keep reading free with an account. Start They Made Me Hunt For My Own Wedding from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
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