He Rejected Me the Night I Birthed His Twins novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: The Alpha Steps Down

Morven's POV

The Black Fir great hall was full by noon.

Every bench was taken.

The wolves who couldn't find a seat stood along the walls, three deep.

The windows were open so the ones on the lawn could hear.

I stood at the back with Torin beside me and my son in my arms.

I had told myself I would not come in.

I came in.

Rhoda's carved chair on the dais stood empty.

Her car had vanished before sunrise, and her two guards had woken in a ditch with no memory of it.

Torin's scouts had searched every road since dawn and found no trace of her.

I kept looking at the empty chair anyway.

Cedric walked onto the dais alone, in the same black suit he had worn the night he rejected me.

It was creased and stained now.

He had not shaved.

He put both hands on the lectern and looked at three hundred faces.

"I'm Cedric Grimshaw," he said. "For seven years I've been your Alpha. I'm here to tell you what that was."

Nobody coughed.

"For three years, I was strong because of Morven Moncrief," he said. "I never earned it. I never knew it. I thought the bond was a gift to me. It was her wolf, asleep, holding up all of you."

A murmur went down the benches.

"My mother knew. She kept Morven drugged so that nobody could take it from us. I didn't ask why my wife was tired. I didn't ask why my mother brought her tea every Sunday."

"Say the rest of it," I said.

I hadn't meant to speak.

The whole hall turned to look at me.

Cedric's face drained.

"Morven," he said. "That's not about you."

"It's about the man standing next to me. Say it."

He swallowed.

"Six years ago, an Ironwood scout walked out onto the bridge with his hands open," he said. "My mother had him shot. She put the border report in front of me the next day. I signed it without reading it."

A sound went through the benches.

Torin did not move.

"I let a man be called a trespasser who was killed trying to stop a fight," Cedric said. "I never looked into it. I didn't want to know. I've known it was wrong for six years and I've told no one."

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