Chapter 23: Terms Withdrawn

The treaty was signed on a Thursday, in the Stone Hall, before the elders of two packs.

Bram came across the bay with his beta and a roll of vellum, and he signed Saltmarsh's name in a plain, square hand.

Wynne signed after him.

The oldest elder sanded the ink and rolled it up, and the hall waited for them to be dismissed.

"There's one more thing," Wynne said.

She had not planned to say it in front of anyone.

She had planned to say it in a corridor, or at the jetty, where she could change her mind.

But she had stood on a gravel path once and shut her mouth, and she had not liked herself afterward.

"Alpha Hollister."

"Alpha Tennant."

"I once set terms. No bond, no mark, no promises that outlast the night."

The elders went quiet.

Bram's face had not moved at all.

"You did," he said.

"I'm withdrawing them."

"You can't withdraw a thing like that in front of witnesses without meaning it."

"I mean it."

"Say what you mean, then."

He had said that on the gravel path, too.

This time she did not stand in the cold with her mouth shut.

"I want you for my mate," she said.

"No bond to hold us. No mark on anyone's neck. No magic to pull either of us back."

"I'd be choosing you with nothing to make me."

"If either of us wanted to walk, we could. I'm asking you to stay anyway."

A murmur ran along the benches.

An elder dropped his stick.

Bram stood very still.

"Those aren't your terms," he said, at last.

"No."

"Your terms say no promises past the night. I'm to throw them back at you. I told myself I would."

"Throw them."

"You're the one who made them, Wynne."

"I'm the one breaking them. Say yes or say no."

He crossed the floor.

He did it slowly, in front of everyone.

When he was close enough that she had to tip her head back, he put his palm against her cheek.

"I thought a bond would pull you back to him," he said, very low.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Alpha Carried Her, So the Luna Cut the Bond from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.