Chapter 24: The Grave

I went to Ironwood in daylight, on foot, with my son on my chest and my mate beside me.

The cemetery sat on a hill above the pack houses, behind an iron gate and a row of old pines.

The whole pack had come.

Four hundred wolves stood among the stones in their winter coats, silent, and they parted to let us through.

The new Alpha, the big sandy man, took off his hat as I passed.

My grave was at the top of the hill.

The stone was still there, with my name on it in clean letters.

MORVEN COLQUHOUN, it said.

Beloved.

I almost laughed.

Cormac stood beside it in work clothes, with a shovel in his hand.

The ground in front of the stone was open.

He had dug up the box that morning, with his own hands, and the lid lay propped against the headstone.

It was empty, and lined with white satin.

He looked at me, and then at Rory, and he put the shovel down.

He didn't come closer.

"I didn't know what else to do," he said. "I thought you should see it before it goes back."

I looked at the satin.

I looked at the stone that said I was dead.

Four months ago I had stood on a ridge and watched him bury this.

I had watched him tell the world I was a liar.

"Do you want to say anything?" the Beta asked, gently.

"No," I said. "I want to put something in."

I reached into my coat pocket.

It was the splint.

It was the first one, cheap gray plastic the healer had bent to my fingers when Bram carried me in.

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