Accidentally Fell for My Ex's Uncle: Dark Alpha novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Old Law

The shrine was a small stone hut on the riverbank with a roof of moss and a door too short for a grown wolf.

The old woman sat inside on a milk crate.

"Sit," she said. "Mind your head."

I sat on the floor, because there was nothing else, and hit my head on a beam anyway.

"Everyone does that," she said, and offered me a biscuit from a tin. "They're stale. I like them that way."

I took one. It was a rock.

"I have something for you," she said.

She dug in the pocket of her cardigan and brought out a fold of bills held with a rubber band.

"What is that?"

"Your commission."

"My what?"

"I bet that you'd live," she said. "The cash box had a line for it, two hundred to one. Nobody else took it."

She counted off bills with a wet thumb.

"My winnings are eleven hundred and eighty," she said. "I'm giving you half."

"Why?"

"Because I won on a girl who lived," the old woman said. "It has never happened, and I would like you to have something for it."

I held the money for a moment.

"Five hundred and ninety," I said.

"You can count."

"I'm going to give it to her family. The bride's. Is that all right?"

"Child," she said. "That is the correct answer."

She put the tin down.

"I asked you here to explain the mark," she said. "Nobody has told you what it means, and nobody would dare. They would rather bet."

"What does it mean?"

"The old law of the Moon Goddess is simple." She held up one crooked finger. "A bride who takes the vow for love, or for fear, or for a debt, or because she fell in a cake, is marked. The Goddess takes her as she is."

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