The Alpha Rejected His Scentless Mate at the Altar, So She Came Back as the Luna He Kneels For novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Valley

I grabbed her wrist before she could step away.

"Say that again."

Imogen looked down at my hand on her arm.

Then she looked up at the Council table with wide, wet eyes.

"She's hurting me," she said loudly. "She's doing it right now. Everyone can see."

Everyone could.

I let go.

Imogen smiled at me, small and sweet, and walked out of the hall with her father.

I told Tiernan that afternoon.

I found him in the stables behind the Ravensdale house, rewrapping his feet.

"She said you'd be dead before the Wolf Moon."

He didn't even look up.

"Imogen says a lot of things."

"She meant it."

"Then let her try." He pulled his boot on over the bandage. "I've had five years of people wanting me dead. Most of them were me."

I didn't know what to say to that.

So I left.

Four days later, the Council walked the Hollow Valley.

That was the custom when a pack claimed land.

Both Alphas, both Lunas, the Speaker and a handful of wolves from each side walked the boundary together, so nobody could say later they didn't know where the lines were.

Ashenveil had no Luna.

So it was Tiernan, Theron and me, the Speaker in a sled pulled by two young wolves, and a dozen warriors.

The valley was beautiful.

I had forgotten.

Steep pine slopes on both sides, white with snow.

In the middle of it, steam rose from the hot springs and froze into feathers on the branches.

At noon the Speaker stopped to rest.

Theron stretched and looked around.

"Selene. Walk the springs with Ashenveil's Alpha. Make sure he doesn't move any markers."

He said it lightly.

He winked at me where nobody could see.

I knew exactly why he was sending me.

Tiernan and I walked down into the steam together.

Neither of us said anything for a long time.

The springs were a chain of pools in the black rock, blue-green and hissing.

The snow around them had melted to bare stone.

It was warm enough to open my coat.

"I used to come here," Tiernan said finally. "After you were gone."

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