The Last Time He Called Me Dad novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Stone
At Tobin's Moon Rite the whole pack watches Conall lift Lorna's son onto the Moon Stone instead of his own; Tobin calls out Dad for the last time, and Catriona lays her Luna's pendant on the stone, drinks the potion that cuts the mate bond, and calls her brother to come and get them.
My son stood at the foot of the Moon Stone in his grey rite cloak, and the Alpha was late.
A hundred and fifty wolves waited in a ring around us on the ridge.
The moon sat one hand above the trees.
Tobin kept looking down the trail, with the wooden wolf his father had carved squeezed in both fists.
"Mom, is Dad coming?"
"He's coming."
I held up my phone and showed him the text his father had sent an hour ago.
On my way. Start without me. I would never miss it.
Lorna Quill knelt in front of him and straightened his fox collar.
She had sewn that cloak herself, three nights at her kitchen table, and she had refused to let me pay for the wool.
"Look at that," she said. "Best-dressed boy on the ridge."
Tobin almost smiled.
She stood and squeezed my arm.
"Emmett spiked a fever an hour ago," she said low. "Conall's bringing him up himself, so don't be angry when they're a minute behind. I'll go and watch the trail."
"Thank you, Lorna."
"Don't you dare thank me."
She walked off with her lantern, and her red-gold hair caught the light all the way to the trees.
One of the elders cleared his throat.
"Luna, the stone only takes the hour of moonrise. We cannot hold it."
"Two more minutes," I said.
He gave me one.
Then the pack turned its head all at once, and Conall came up the trail with a small boy in his arms.
Emmett wore a grey cloak with a fox collar.
It was cut exactly like Tobin's.
Conall didn't look at me.
He walked straight past his son and climbed the stone with Emmett's flushed face against his shoulder.
"Alpha," the elder said, "Tobin Harlan is first by three weeks."
"Emmett's burning up." Conall's voice carried across the whole ridge. "He goes first. Tobin is healthy. Tobin can wait."
Nobody in that ring needed the law explained.
A child who misses his moon waits a full year, unclaimed, with the whole pack watching.
Conall lifted Emmett high into the moonlight.
"Emmett Quill, under this moon, you are named, and you are mine to protect."
The pack howled for him.
Tobin broke from my side and ran to the foot of the stone, and the wooden wolf fell out of his hands.
"Dad!" His voice cracked on it. "Dad, I'm here! I'm right here!"
Conall looked down at him for one second.
"Not now, Tobin."
He stepped off the stone with Emmett in his arms.
His boot came down on the wooden wolf Tobin had dropped.
It cracked in half with a sound I heard over the howling.
He did not look down.
Lorna hurried over, took Emmett, and Conall put his hand on her back.
Tobin stood very still, looking at the two halves in the grass.
I picked them up and put them in my coat.
I had worn a pendant on that ridge every day for seven years, a flat silver moon on a leather cord.
So I took it off.
I walked up the stone's three steps and laid it down on the cold rock.
"I resign as Luna of Hollow Pine," I said. "Under this moon, in front of this pack."
The howling stopped.
"Catriona," Conall said.
I took Tobin's hand and walked down the ridge.
Nobody stopped us.
At the logging road gate there is a shed where an old herb-healer keeps her jars.
She looked at me, and then at Tobin's grey cloak.
"You want the Unbinding."
"Yes."
"It cuts the bond from your side, and it hurts. Ask me again."
"I'm asking again."
She set two small vials on the counter.
I took the first and drank it standing up.
It tasted of smoke and bitter root, and then it was a fire running through my chest, and I held the counter until my knuckles went white.
Then the warm pull behind my ribs, the one I'd felt every day since I was twenty-two, went quiet.
The old woman picked up the second vial and set it back on the shelf.
"That one's his," she said. "Most never ask for it."
"He won't."
I walked out into the road.
Tobin held my hand and didn't say anything for a long time.
"Mom," he said at last. "Did I do it wrong?"
"No, baby."
"Dad said not now."
"I know."
I took out my phone, and my hand only shook for the first ring.
"Otis," I said. "Come and get us."
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