I Faked My Death, and the Alpha at My Grave Has Lost His Wolf novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: I Hold You
The Lodge hall on Founders' Day smells of cinnamon, floor wax and two hundred people in their good clothes.
I stood at the front, at the Chair's table, with my daughter asleep on my left arm.
She wore the white christening gown my mother had worn, and a knitted cap with one ear lopsided.
Babi stood at my right in her church dress, holding the plate of salt bread.
The bread women stood in a line behind her, five of them, with their handkerchiefs up their sleeves.
At the long tables the band was waiting with the polka half set up.
Rudy stood at the Chair's seat, because that was the seat, and he had refused to sit in it until I was done.
"The Lodge is called," he said. "Zora Pospisil has the floor."
He said it in his own voice, and it was not a loud one.
Two hundred and forty heads came up.
I looked down the length of the hall.
It was the same long room with the same coffee urn.
At the very back, where I had stood on a Sunday in October with a clinic envelope against my ribs, stood Anton.
He wore his plain brown suit, and he held his hat in front of him.
He was not at the front, and he was not in the row of Betas.
He stood with the members who had no office, between a farmer and the postmaster, and he was looking at my hands.
I had not told him what I was going to do.
I had only told him the day.
"I stood here on the thirteenth of October," I said, "and I said the old words."
My voice carried, which surprised me.
"I refused the bond. The law says the one I refused answers with bread, inside a breath, or the refusal stands."
"My husband did not answer."
Nobody moved.
"Two hundred days have passed," I said. "The Lodge has buried me and struck me out and set me back in the Book of the Living. It has held a vote and a funeral and a birth."
"I want it said that the law was kept. The breath ran out. The refusal stood, and the marriage was void."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Faked My Death, and the Alpha at My Grave Has Lost His Wolf are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend