The Wolf Who Saved Me Makes Other Alphas Submit. I'm Human. novel · Chapter 44 of 48

Chapter 44: Beside

A trooper's medic closed Ronan's wrist with eight stitches on the courthouse steps.

He sat through it with his eyes on my face.

The oldest aunt had arrived by then, in Abel's truck, in her good shawl, with three more behind her.

She came up the steps and looked at the bandage and then at me.

"Honey, you never asked him the right thing," she said.

"I haven't asked him anything yet."

"I know. That's what I mean."

She took my hand and Ronan's good hand and set them together on her knee.

"The old people didn't say mate," she said. "They said beside. He stands beside her, or he doesn't stand. It's not a debt. It's what he is when he's with you, and he can walk away from it any day he likes."

Ronan stared at her.

"Nobody told me that."

"Nobody asked the aunts."

She patted our hands and stood, and she went down the steps to look at the old people on the lawn.

The Moot was still in its half circle, a few feet away, pretending not to listen.

I turned to Ronan.

"I'm going to ask you something in front of all of them," I said. "You can say no."

"Mara."

"It isn't for the blood. It isn't to pay for anything." My voice shook. "I don't want you to stand beside me because I'm owed a debt, or because you're afraid of what you are. I want you there because I'm asking, and because I love you."

He had gone completely still.

"Will you stand beside me?"

For a moment I thought he wouldn't speak.

He looked at the nine Alphas.

He looked at the lawn full of old people who had taken off their own bands, and at the white bandage on his wrist.

Then he got to his feet.

He did it without leaning on me.

He stood a step below me, as he had in November, and he looked me in the eye.

"Yes," he said.

"You don't have to."

"I know. I choose it." His voice cracked. "I'd have paid for it, and you'd have taken it, and it would have been a debt. This is the first thing I've ever been given that I didn't owe for."

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