Fate Picked Me, the Alpha Passed, and I Felt Nothing novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Boat

On the first of November he was standing at the end of his dock at seven in the morning with his hands in his coat.

It was Sunday, bright and bitterly cold, with a skin of ice along the shore.

I had known where to find him.

A rowboat lay tied to the dock, old grey wood with a green stripe, the paint worn to the grain.

It sat low in the water.

He turned when he heard my boots.

"You didn't have to come," he said.

"You didn't ask me to."

"No."

"So I came."

He looked at me for a long moment.

His face was hollow, and his eyes were red at the rims.

"It's today," he said. "Every year I take his boat out. Alone. I row to the middle and sit. I don't know why."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No."

He said it fast, then closed his mouth.

"I'm not asking you," he said. "I want you to know I'm not asking."

"I know."

"But if you got in the boat."

"Move over," I said.

I stepped down into it, and it rocked, and I sat in the stern on the plank seat with my knees together.

He untied the line.

He rowed.

He rowed hard and clean, with his back to where we were going, and the oarlocks creaked and the water ran off the blades in beads.

The Point shrank behind him.

The lake was a sheet of pewter, and the far shore was dark pines and white mist.

When we reached the middle, he shipped the oars and let the boat drift.

It turned slowly.

It was quiet enough to hear the ice ticking on the shore a quarter mile away.

"He stopped eating in March," Dray said.

I did not say anything.

"My mother died in October, a stroke, in the kitchen. He was holding a pot. He held the pot for an hour before he called anybody."

He was looking at his hands.

"He kept being Alpha. He ran the supper and he settled the disputes. He was so calm that nobody saw."

"You saw."

"I saw. I was twenty-four. I told myself it was grief, and I let it be."

The boat rocked a little.

"On the first of November he came into my room at three in the morning."

He sat on the bed.

"He told me the pack was mine and I'd be better at it than he was."

My throat closed.

"He said, Don't ever want anything this much."

"Dray."

"I said, Dad, go to bed. He smiled. He went out. I went back to sleep."

His voice did not shake.

That was the worst part.

"You know what I found at six."

His jaw worked.

"I took the seat that afternoon. I swore I'd never want anything like that."

He lifted his head, and his eyes were full.

"And then the moon gave me you."

"And you ran."

"I ran."

"You were scared you'd go in the lake."

"I was scared I'd go in for you."

I moved.

I crossed the boat on my knees, and it rocked hard, and he caught my elbows to steady us.

I took his face in both hands.

"I'm not going in a lake," I said. "And neither are you."

He broke.

He folded forward into me, his forehead against my collarbone, and I held his head and rocked him, and the boat rocked under us.

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