They Stole Her for a Breeding Den, She Chose the Alpha Who Let Her Leave novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Open Gate
I did not take the ring.
I looked at Darius instead.
He stood a few feet off with no coat and no ring, and bruises on his knuckles, and he was looking at the floor.
"Look at me," I said.
He did.
"Before I say it, I'm going to ask you something in front of everyone. Would you let me walk out of this hall tonight and not follow?"
"Yes."
"Would you let me go back to my bakery and never come back to the headland?"
"Yes," he said. "I'd drive you."
"Even though you'd hate it?"
"Every minute," Darius said steadily. "And I'd do it."
I heard the hall shift.
I turned to face the families, and I raised my voice so it carried to the back wall.
"A yes that's forced is air," I said. "That's the law, and that's what Silas never understood. I was taken from my own lot, and I was shut in a house, and not one of you stopped it. This man opened the door anyway, and he told me to go, and he meant it."
I held up my hand.
"So I'm going to say it, once. I give my word, freely and in this hall, to one Alpha. I name Darius Kade."
The room let out a long, shuddering breath.
Darius closed his eyes.
"Not because he's kept me safe," I said. "Because he let me go, and I came back. Those are different things. Everyone in here had better learn the difference."
I took the iron ring from the elder's palm.
I crossed the floor and took Darius's right hand, and I pushed the ring onto his finger myself.
It fit the pale band it had left.
"Say your rule," I said quietly.
"Nothing happens in this house unless you say it." His voice broke. "And the gate stays open."
"Always."
"Always."
He kissed my knuckles in front of eighty wolves, and nobody looked away.
Later, in his room, with the door unlocked and the curtains open on the moon, I lay on my back on his bed and drew him down on top of me.
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