The Neglected Girl Chosen by the Moon Goddess novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Laundry Room

Ivy leaves with Bastian and learns she's his mate, then learns the law: she must shift in front of the Council, and she never has.

My mother put her hand down at her side.

"Your Majesty," she said. "This is a private family discussion."

"She's the Chosen." He stepped inside. "Nothing about her is private to me."

My father got up off the arm of the chair.

"Bastian. Please. You have to understand, the girl is confused. She's never been strong."

"I understand fine." The Alpha King didn't look at him. "The Chosen leaves with me tonight."

"Tonight?" Lottie sat up. "She can't. She doesn't even own a suitcase."

He turned to me.

It was the first time anyone had looked straight at me all night without wanting something.

"Your choice," he said. "You can stay. Or you can come with me to Silverpine and nobody here lays a hand on you again."

I didn't have to think about it.

"I'll get my things."

My mother's face did something I had never seen before.

It went blank, then white.

I walked past her to the kitchen.

The laundry room was behind the pantry.

It was six feet by nine, with the washer, the dryer, my cot, and one small window over the sink.

I pulled the old duffel out from under the cot.

Two pairs of jeans. Four shirts, all Lottie's once.

Socks. My toothbrush from the cup on the sink.

A tin box that used to hold Christmas cookies.

Inside it were the only photographs of me I owned.

Most of them I had cut out of pack newsletters, where I stood at the edge of group pictures, half in the frame.

I put in the other half of Tilda's honey cake, wrapped in the towel.

Then I reached for the hook on the back of the door.

The blue scarf was gone.

Tilda had knitted it for me three winters ago. Soft blue wool with a white stripe.

It was the only thing I owned that had been made for me.

I went back out through the kitchen.

Lottie was standing by the fridge with the scarf around her neck.

"Looking for this?" she said.

"Give it back."

"It's cold out. I'm borrowing it." She tucked the ends into her white silk. "You took my mark. I'll take your ugly scarf. That's fair, isn't it?"

I held out my hand.

She smiled and didn't move.

Behind me, the Alpha King filled the kitchen doorway.

Lottie's smile slipped.

I let my hand drop.

"Keep it," I said. "It'll remind you what somebody made with their own hands for me."

Her face went red.

I walked out.

Anson was sitting on the bottom stair in the hall.

He looked up at me with the duffel on my shoulder.

For a second I thought he might say something.

He looked back down at his phone.

Outside, the pack was still in the clearing, pretending not to watch the porch.

Tilda stood at the foot of the steps.

She squeezed my hand and pressed something into it.

Her house key.

"In case," she said.

The truck was warm inside and smelled like coffee and leather.

A man with a shaved head and a short beard was driving.

"I'm the Beta," he said over his shoulder. "Welcome aboard."

The Alpha King got in the back beside me.

We pulled out past the gate and onto the county road.

I watched the lights of Hollowcreek go smaller in the side mirror until the trees took them.

Nobody came out onto the porch.

"Your cheek," Bastian said.

"It's fine."

"It isn't."

He held out a handkerchief. I pressed it to my lip.

We drove for a while with only the sound of the tires.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Anything."

"The mark. What does it actually mean? For me."

He looked at me in the dark of the back seat.

"It means you're the Goddess's voice among the packs," he said. "And it means you're my mate."

I stared at him.

"I felt it the second the moon hit you," he said. "Across the whole clearing."

"I didn't feel anything."

"I know."

"Isn't the girl supposed to feel it too?"

"Her wolf feels it first." His voice stayed gentle. "Yours hasn't woken up yet."

I turned the handkerchief over in my hands.

"There's a law," he said. "You should hear it from me, not from someone who wants to hurt you with it."

"What law?"

"The Ascension is at the next full moon. Twenty-nine days from tonight. In front of the whole Council, under the open roof at Silverpine."

"And?"

"And the Chosen has to shift there. In front of everyone." He paused. "If she can't, the mark passes to the next unmated girl of her blood."

To Lottie.

I looked down at the silver crescent glowing on my wrist.

"I've never shifted," I said. "Not once. Not in my whole life."

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