The Thirteenth Moon novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Thirteenth Moon
Davin unmakes Brynn's betrothal vine over lunch on the ceremonial grounds; she refuses to say the word that lets him off, and he tells her Sable is carrying his child.
Davin carried the bread board out to the table for me, then took the vine off my arm while I was slicing.
We were at the long table in the old clearing on the north ridge, where the whole pack would stand at moonrise.
Three hundred places had been marked in the grass with white stones.
The den-mother sat at the far end with two of the elders, eating roast potatoes and pretending not to listen.
Tonight was the thirteenth full moon since the vine was cut into my forearm.
Tonight Davin was supposed to walk me up onto the moonstone dais and speak the mating vow.
I had been up since four cooking the feast, and I still had flour on my sleeve.
My best friend set a basket of rolls beside me and squeezed my shoulder.
"He's nervous," she whispered. "Let him say whatever he needs to say. Then eat something, Brynn."
She ran the cookhouse line with me every morning of the year.
She pushed her wine cup away without a sip, and I thought, nerves.
Davin stood up at the head of the table.
He walked around and crouched next to my chair, so that I would not have to look up at him.
"I need to do this before the pack gets here," he said. "It's kinder in private."
He took my left wrist in both his hands.
The vine ran up the inside of my forearm in thirteen silver thorns, one for every moon I had waited for him.
He pressed his thumb to the first thorn and said the old words quietly.
"I unmake what I made."
The silver went pale, thorn by thorn, up my arm, and then the vine lay flat and gone under my skin.
At the inside of my wrist, the small crescent I was born with stayed exactly where it was.
Davin didn't look at it.
At the far end of the table, Edda the den-mother put down her fork and looked at my wrist for a long time.
She said nothing, and went back to her potatoes.
"There," Davin said, and let go. "It's done, and nobody has been hurt."
I looked at my bare arm.
"You did that before I said a word."
"I'm trying to make this easy for you." He kept his voice low and gentle."The law says an Alpha can release his Luna cleanly if she says one word before the pack. You say 'released' tonight, and everybody keeps their dignity."
"Everybody."
"You keep your place in the cookhall. You keep your name. I keep mine."
The two elders had stopped eating.
I understood then that they had been seated at my table on purpose, so that someone would be there to witness me say yes.
"What happens if I don't say it?" I asked.
Davin's jaw tightened. "Brynn."
"You know the law better than I do. What happens?"
"A promised Luna left unmarked past the thirteenth moon is a broken oath." He said it flatly. "The Council can rule on it."
"On whose oath?"
He didn't answer.
"Yours," I said. "You unmade the vine without my word. If I never say it, the oath you broke is still broken, and it's yours."
"You would drag this in front of the Council?" He laughed once, short and disbelieving. "Over what? You never even loved me."
I had carried this pack's winter stores for thirteen moons so that his people would eat in January.
I had stood at his side at every funeral and every naming.
I had let his father cut my arm open, and I had never once complained about the pain.
"I would have married you," I said. "I would have stood on that dais tonight and meant every word."
I picked up the bread knife, set it down on the board, and stood.
"So here is what happens. At moonrise you stand in front of three hundred wolves and tell them what you just told me. I won't say the word. I'll let them watch you not get it."
Davin rose to face me, and for a moment he looked like the boy who used to carry my books up the east trail.
Then his face closed.
"There's something you should hear before you do that," he said. "I wanted to say it kindly."
Sable had stopped moving beside me.
"Sable is carrying my child," Davin said. "Eight weeks. It's mine, and I won't have it born to a Luna who isn't."
I turned and looked at her.
She had one hand pressed flat against her stomach, over the cream sweater I had helped her pick out in September.
She did not look at me.
She looked at the white stones in the grass, and she did not say she was sorry.
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