After the Tenth Bond Break: I Became the Luna of the Shadowfang Alpha novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Count

The guard set the slate on the frozen floor in front of the Council's shelf, front side up.

Ten chalk strokes ran down it in a neat white column.

"This is a healer's count," the old woman said. "Healer Crewe, is it yours?"

"It is," June said. "It's how I tracked the rites. It's nothing."

"Turn it over," I said to the guard.

He turned it, and the elder to the old woman's right leaned down to read.

I did not need to read it.

I had read it in the cabin until the words stopped looking like words.

"The top line says Alpha's share," the elder said slowly. "Below it are ten dates. The first falls in the week the Alpha and the accused were bonded."

"A healer plans her schedule in advance," June said. "I prepared for what the Alpha asked of me."

"Beside the sixth it says Council asks questions, ignore."

"Questions about the rites. I meant to be discreet."

"Beside the tenth it says Gathering. Cutter."

The elder looked up.

June did not answer.

I stepped to the slate and put my boot beside it.

"Nine of those strokes are things that happened to me," I said. "The tenth she chalked a week before Carson said the words. She marked the Gathering and the cutter before I had ever left the ring."

I lifted my chin.

"She told me each time I was starving. I wasn't starving. I was taking in what he put down."

"Lies," said the Beta, from the Greywater pillar.

"Hester," I said.

Hester came forward and opened the oilcloth ledger on her forearm.

She read the line aloud in her blunt kitchen voice, so every wolf in the bowl could hear it.

"If one mate cuts the thread by choice, the cutter's share does not go back to him. It stays with the one he cut it from."

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