My Pack Called Me Empty, So the Coldest Alpha Claimed Me Out Loud novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Pitcher
At the Hunter's Gathering the cold Alpha crosses the hall, takes the pitcher from Maija's hand and tells three packs he is courting her; Reino names the Accord deadline, and Maija walks out on her own terms.
I was pouring cider for the visiting Alpha when Eskil Lehto put his hand over the mouth of my pitcher.
I stopped, because nobody touches the pitcher girl.
The long table ran the whole length of the hall, and every seat at it was full.
Three packs had come for the autumn Gathering.
Two hundred wolves were eating, and every one of them stopped chewing.
"Give it to me," Eskil said.
His voice was low and level, and the wolves around me flinched.
They always flinched when he spoke.
I never did, because the Alpha voice slides off me.
To me he was just a man with a quiet voice and a cold face, standing too close to my elbow.
Every other wolf in that hall tipped a head to scent me when I passed, and then looked away.
Eskil stood at my elbow and did not scent the air at all.
"I've got this table," I said.
"I know you do."
He took the pitcher out of my hand and set it on the boards.
Then he turned to the hall.
Eskil was thirty-three, and he had been the Alpha of Ironwood for three years.
In that time he had never smiled at a guest, never danced at a Gathering, and never once looked at a woman.
Wolves said he had buried his heart with his father.
He looked at me now with those pale grey eyes, and I felt every head in the hall turn.
"Maija Hakala," he said, loud enough to reach the back wall. "I am courting you."
Nobody breathed.
"I'm telling you in front of the whole pack and our guests, so no one can say later that I did it quietly."
"Anyone who has a problem with it can bring it to me."
A fork dropped somewhere.
Leena, my best friend, was standing in the kitchen doorway with a tray of bread, and her mouth was hanging open.
I stood there in my barn coat with cider on my sleeve and my braid coming loose.
I was the girl who carried things.
The pack called me empty, and they said it kindly when they said it at all.
My father stood up at the head of the table with his silver Beta's pin gleaming on his collar and his face gone red.
"Alpha," Veikko said. "With respect. She's no use to you."
"She has no wolf, and she can't hold the pack bond."
"A Luna has to carry the bond, and everyone here knows it."
He didn't look at me when he said it.
He never did, when he said it.
"I didn't ask you, Veikko," Eskil said.
Down the table, the visiting Alpha put his cup down.
Reino Kettunen, who led the Tamarack pack, was fifty-two, big across the shoulders, with a white beard and a fur-collared coat he wore indoors.
He had the warmest voice in the Upper Peninsula, and I had never liked it.
"Well, Eskil," he said, smiling. "That's a surprise."
"It's a pleasant one, I'm sure."
"But you'll want to remember the Accord, with the Moot coming."
The hall stirred.
Everyone knew the Accord, the old treaty between our two packs.
It said an Alpha under thirty-five who was still unmated at the Midwinter Moot gave Tamarack oversight of his pack.
Or he could take Tamarack's daughter to the table beside him, and keep his seat.
"Mated and marked before the three packs by midwinter," Reino said, gently.
"My daughter is happy to wait for her answer until then."
"And you can't mark a girl who has no wolf, can you? There'd be nothing to answer the bite."
Somebody at the back laughed, a short ugly sound.
I felt the whole room look at me then, and I understood what I was to them.
A dead end, with a pitcher.
It was the same thing my father had always said.
Now the Alpha of Ironwood had walked across the hall and picked me up in front of everyone, and they were weighing what it would cost him.
I could have stood there and let them.
I could have dropped my eyes and said I was sorry, and carried the pitcher back to the kitchen.
I had done it for nine years.
"Alpha," I said.
Eskil turned.
"You've told everyone what you want," I said. "You haven't asked me anything."
His face didn't change, but something in his eyes did.
"I'm not a pitcher you pick up," I said. "You want to court me, you come to my door and ask. My door, not this table."
I took off my apron and laid it over the back of my father's chair.
Then I walked down the whole length of the hall past two hundred wolves, and nobody stopped me.
I reached the door and put my hand on the cold iron latch.
Behind me, Eskil said, quietly, "At your door, then."
I looked back.
He bowed his head to me.
The Alpha of Ironwood bowed his head to the Beta's empty daughter in front of three packs, and behind him a glass hit the floor and broke.
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