Unwanted Shewolf novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Wanted

A year to the day after I walked to the border stones, I came down the stairs of Marrick House and found the dining hall full.

Tables had been run end to end through the doors and out across the lawn, and every chair was taken.

Every one of them had a card in front of it, folded in half, with my name on it in a different hand.

"Happy birthday, Hazel," said a hundred people at once.

I stood in the doorway in the old grey shawl and could not say anything at all.

The old man with the work coat held up his cup.

The young warrior who had called me blank was sitting beside the woman who had laughed at me, and they were both grinning.

The eldest elder rapped her cane on the floor.

"Daughter," she said. "You gave an order, and it has been obeyed."

"I see that."

"Sit, before it all goes cold."

My seat was at the head of the table, in the place where Elias used to stand with his orange juice.

Rafe was on my right, in a clean shirt that did not fit.

He pulled out my chair, and I sat.

"You made the cake," I said.

"I made a cake."

I looked at the plate in front of him.

It was lopsided, and black at the edges, and it smelled of smoke.

"Rafe."

"Mabel stood over me the whole time," he said. "I did exactly what she said."

"He did," Mabel said from the far end, with a straight face. "I can't account for what happened to it."

The whole table started to laugh.

I laughed until I had to put my face in my hands, and Rafe sat beside me with his ears red and his arm around the back of my chair.

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