He Ignored My Pain, So I Left Him in Regret novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Roster
Rafe crosses "mate" off the winter roster for Clara, Ivy lets it go and signs the dissolution petition, and the clerk warns that the keeper reads out what the bond held.
Rafe was helping the steward with the winter moon roster, because the old man's hands shook, and he stopped with the charcoal pencil above the word "mate" beside his own name.
The whole hall was lined up for the winter moon roster, and every one of them watched him do it.
I was standing in the doorway with my shirt still stiff from the healer's salve.
The column marked "mate" had held my name for four years.
He crossed it out and wrote Clara's name there instead.
"Clara's been in Greyhaven for two years," he told the steward, quietly, as if it were a chore. "She doesn't know the pass. I'll take her up the mountain myself."
Nobody in the line said a word.
Three weeks ago I had told him at the granary door that I was going to the old stone hall in the valley to end the bond.
He had gone back to the night watch room at the caravan post and hadn't slept under our roof since.
In four years of wearing his mark, I had never once seen him sick or hurt.
The other wolves joked that nothing could touch the Alpha of the Hollin caravan.
He set the pencil down and turned, and saw me.
His eyes went to the empty salve jar in my hand, then to the way I held my shoulders.
"Why was the healer with you?" he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, and Clara came around the table before I could.
She had her hand on his sleeve, and she smiled at me with her whole face.
"Ivy, you look so much better. I was worried sick. Save me a seat on the third wagon and I'll bring honey for the road."
"Rafe, the dancers are waiting at the Hall door," she added. "We should go."
"Go on, then," I said, and smiled back at both of them. "I'm done here."
Rafe did not move.
For four years he had asked me to stop checking where he slept.
Now I had stopped, and he didn't like that either.
So I stepped out of the line, away from the table, and left them to the dancers.
I went around the hall and into the common kitchen alone.
The cook let me order the pepper pie at last, after a month of broth, and I sat down with it by the window.
I had barely lifted the fork when Nessa Tull pushed through the door curtain.
She ran the winter ledgers beside me at the granary, and she took the bench across from me without asking.
"You lost the pup, you burned your back to the bone, and he still doesn't know?"
"He knows about the pup," I said. "He found out about the burns today, from the smell on me."
"He asked you once. I watched it from the door."
Her eyes went over my face, looking for a crack.
"I'm fine, Nessa. The pie is hot."
I ate a bite and took my time swallowing.
"He asked once, and then Clara needed to be walked to rehearsal."
Nessa swore into her cup.
"I told him weeks ago it was ending," I said. "He didn't ask why then, either."
"He doesn't deserve you, Ivy."
"Then I won't make him keep me."
"Then you're really going?" she said. "Ten days on the mountain road with the two of them in front?"
"I'll ride the third wagon and bring my own food."
I finished the pie, and it was every bit as good as I had hoped.
Then I walked to the steward's office behind the hall, where a clerk sat with the petition forms in a locked drawer.
"Moonwell Hall takes dissolutions at the winter moon," the clerk said. "That's ten nights from now. The caravan leaves at dawn."
"Then I'll be on it."
I signed the petition on his desk, in my own hand, with no one standing behind me.
He stamped it and folded it into an oilcloth sleeve.
"One thing," he said, and he hesitated. "At the Hall, the keeper reads out loud what the bond held. Everyone in the room hears it."
"Held?" I said. "It held me."
He just handed me the sleeve.
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