I Offered Myself for Their Peace, and the Lycan King Was Waiting novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Eighteenth Birthday
Keira volunteers to die for Ashgrove at the Blessing Sea; her brothers let her walk in, and a warm hand takes hers under the water.
At noon I stood in the council hall and told the Beta I wanted to die for the pack.
Three elders sat along the long table behind him, and every one of them put down their cup.
"Miss Lamont," the Beta said. "Pack law forbids anyone under eighteen from offering themselves to the Moon Goddess."
"I turned eighteen this morning."
I pointed at the wall clock. Both hands stood straight up at twelve.
A white robe lay folded on the table beside his ledger. It was my size.
The Beta looked at me for a long time.
"Do your brothers know what you're asking?"
"They wouldn't care if they did."
My voice came out quiet, but it didn't shake.
"I'm giving myself to the Goddess of my own will," I said. "All I ask is that Ashgrove gets peace for generations."
Nobody at the table argued with me.
The oldest elder studied his thumbnail. The other two looked at the door.
The Beta nodded once.
"Tonight is the full moon," he said. "The rite is at seven, on the black rock at the Blessing Sea."
"Once it begins, no one can stop it, and you will not come back."
"I know."
"The Goddess is kind to those who come to her freely," he said. "You will not be afraid."
He slid the robe across the table to me.
I took it.
Today was my eighteenth birthday.
For other girls it was the day they found their fated mate and left home.
For me it had only ever been a punishment.
It was also the day my mother died.
At dusk I walked down to the Blessing Sea in the robe.
The path ran along the pack border.
A rogue had caught my mother there, eighteen years ago, and left her bleeding in the grass.
She bore me nine months later and bled out before sunrise.
My father was gone within the year.
Ashgrove lost its Alpha and its Luna in one winter, and it blamed the baby.
My four brothers were all Alphas, with our father's blood and his huge black wolf.
I had shifted once, at sixteen, and my wolf was white.
Cade called her the ghost. She never came out again, and nobody asked her to.
My brothers were already on the rock.
Every year on this day they stood on the black rock and laid white flowers on the water.
Every year I was told to stay in my room until it was over.
Rowan stood at the edge with his back to me.
He was the eldest, the Alpha, and he had not said my name since I was nine.
Cade saw me first.
He crossed the rock, pulled off his jacket and held it out.
"The wind off the water is bad tonight," he said. "Take it."
His eyes went to the white robe and slid away.
I shook my head, and he put the jacket on the rock beside my boots and went back to the flowers.
Drew looked at his flowers. Ellis looked at his boots.
I stopped at the far end of the rock and said nothing.
The Beta came down the cliff path with a bronze bell in his hand.
Behind him came the three elders and half the pack.
He rang the bell once, and the sound rolled out over the water.
"By the old law," he said, "a daughter of Ashgrove offers herself to the Moon Goddess tonight."
"She comes of her own will. The rite is hers, and no one may call her back."
Rowan turned around.
It was the first time he had looked at me in years. His face went still.
"Who?" he said.
"Keira Lamont," the Beta said.
"She's a child."
"She turned eighteen today," the Beta said.
Cade laughed, short and surprised.
"Let her," he said. "It's the first useful thing she's ever done."
Nobody told him to be quiet.
The door of my room over the garage had a lock on the outside.
Cade put it there when I was twelve, and no one had ever taken it off.
Nobody on that rock had ever asked me to stay for anything.
I looked at each of my brothers once. Drew had gone white. Ellis opened his mouth and nothing came out.
Rowan didn't move.
"The moon is up," the Beta said.
I untied my boots and set them on the rock, side by side. Then I stepped off the edge.
The water was so cold it closed my throat.
It came to my knees, then my waist, and the robe floated up around me.
Behind me the bell rang again, and this time it didn't stop.
"Keira!"
It was Rowan. His voice cracked in the middle of my name.
I did not turn around.
The black water rose over my shoulders, and over my head, and the moon went out above me.
I let my breath go.
Something closed around my hand.
It was warm, and it was a man's hand, and it held on.
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