The Forbidden Mate: Claimed by My Ex's Alpha Uncle novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: Cold Ridge

"No," I said into the phone. "Not there."

"Yes," the eldest said. "There."

"He nearly died there."

"He nearly died in your trauma bay too. You don't mind that place."

I looked down at Stellan on the step.

He'd heard every word.

He tipped his head back against my knee and looked up at me.

"She's right," he said. "I'd rather stand there than keep walking around it."

So that's where we went.

The November full moon came up white over the north side of Cold Ridge.

The snow had come early that year, and there was an inch of it on the ground, blue in the moonlight.

The old fire tower stood at the top of the slope, a tall wooden frame with a glass room at the top.

Below it was the clearing where he'd fallen, with a fire built in the middle.

The whole pack was there.

Four hundred wolves, standing in the snow in their good coats, breath going up.

And at the back, in a crowd of their own, the strays.

Every one who'd signed the petition.

The old trucker in a borrowed tie.

The old woman from exam room one, in her wheelchair, with a blanket and an oxygen tank.

She looked like she'd climbed the ridge herself.

Lucille had made me wear a dress.

Dark green wool, from the thrift store on Main Street, that the motel sisters had taken in at the waist.

I'd made her let me wear boots.

She stood beside me at the edge of the clearing with her arm through mine.

She was in a navy dress I'd never seen and her reading glasses were on her head, held together at the bridge with tape.

"You're shaking," she said.

"It's cold."

"You're a wolf. You're not cold."

"Then I'm shaking."

"Good," she said. "Means you're paying attention."

Across the clearing, by the fire, stood Stellan.

He wore a black coat over a white shirt, and he'd trimmed his beard.

He looked at me across the snow the way he'd looked at me across the recovery room the first morning.

The eldest sat in her wheelchair beside him, wrapped in two blankets with her brooch on the outside.

"Well," she called across the clearing. "Who brings her?"

Lucille lifted her chin.

"I do," she said. "Lucille Ruddock. Stray. Took her in at nineteen. Nobody gave her to me, so I'm giving her to nobody."

"I'm walking her over so she doesn't fall in the snow. She's going on her own."

A laugh went around the clearing, warm and loud.

Lucille walked me across.

At the fire she stopped and took my face in both her hands.

"Seven years I watched you wait," she said quietly. "Don't you wait for anything ever again."

Then she let go and stepped back.

Stellan held out his hand, palm up.

I put mine in it.

The eldest unfolded a sheet of paper from her cardigan pocket.

It was the page from the leather book.

The Kin Law.

She held it up so everybody could see it.

Then she held it out to me.

I dropped it in the fire.

It went up in one bright curl and was gone.

"Say it," the eldest said to Stellan.

He didn't look at her.

He looked at me.

"I, Stellan Rutledge, take you, Geneva Coulter, as my mate," he said. "Before the pack and the moon. On the ground where I fell."

"Say it," the eldest said to me.

Two months ago, in a basement, a man had said my name in front of witnesses to throw it away.

I'd never had to answer him.

I answered this one.

"I, Geneva Coulter, take you, Stellan Rutledge, as my mate," I said. "Before the pack and the moon. And the strays."

I put my palm flat on his chest, over the scar.

He put his over my heart.

Under my hand, his heart.

Under my ribs, his heart.

The same beat, in both places, steady as a fist knocking on a door.

The pack howled.

Four hundred wolves, in human throats, with their heads back to the moon.

The strays howled with them, ragged and loud and off-key, and nobody told them to stop.

The eldest waited until it died down.

Then she reached into her blankets and took out an old leather bag, cracked at the seams, with a brass clasp.

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