This Time, I Won't Beg for His Mark novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Silver
Valerie takes a silver blade for her Alpha, asks to be released from his claim instead of marked, and walks out on his laugh; on the porch her wolf growls awake.
The silver blade went into my side in front of three hundred wolves, and I was the only one who moved.
It happened at the pack's harvest feast, in the middle of our hall, while my Alpha stood on the dais with his back to the crowd.
I saw a man's arm come up behind him.
I saw the dull grey of the blade and knew it was silver.
I didn't decide anything. I stepped between them, and it went in under my ribs.
My Alpha, Lucan Ellington, turned around after I hit the floor.
That is the part I remember best.
I woke two days later, on the afternoon of the full moon, in the infirmary above the hall, with a drain taped to my side and Lucan's hand around mine.
The three elders of the council stood at the foot of the bed.
The door to the corridor was open, and half the pack was standing out there, listening.
"Silver," Lucan said. "The healer says you'll live."
"Good," I said. My voice came out as gravel.
He kissed my knuckles, and he turned his face to the doorway while he did it.
"I owe you my life, Val. Ask me for anything. The elders will witness it."
Nobody in the corridor breathed.
They all knew what I was supposed to ask for.
Eight years ago, on my eighteenth birthday, Lucan had claimed me in front of this same pack.
Every year since, he had put off the marking ceremony that would make me his Luna.
The moon was wrong. The council was busy. His father had died. The harvest was late.
I had cooked his dinners and kept his books and waited.
His mother pushed through the elders with a cup in both hands.
His mother, Hester, had raised me from the age of ten, and she brought me the same tea at every full moon.
Tonight was a full moon.
"Drink this, sweetheart," she said. "It settles your wolf after a shock."
She smoothed my hair back from my forehead.
"And don't you fret about the ceremony. He's been planning it since the day he claimed you. He only wants it perfect."
I drank, the way I always did.
It was bitter under the honey.
Hester took the empty cup and stood at her son's shoulder, smiling at me.
Lucan squeezed my fingers.
"Go on, Val. Anything."
I looked at his hand holding mine.
I had never once heard my wolf. Every other girl in the pack ran with hers by sixteen. I got aching joints and a cup of tea.
I thought about the blade, and about how he had turned around after.
So I asked for the only thing I had never been allowed to have.
"I want out of your claim. Let me go."
The corridor went completely silent.
Lucan's smile stayed where it was.
Then he laughed.
"Val. You're on painkillers."
"I'm not."
"Alpha," the eldest of the elders said, "it was a promise before the council. It is witnessed."
Lucan looked at the elders.
He looked at the doorway, at everyone watching him, and he shrugged.
"Fine. You're released."
I felt it go.
A cord that had been pulled tight under my breastbone for eight years went slack.
I sat up. The stitches dragged through my side, and it hurt more than the blade had.
I put my feet on the cold floor and found my jacket on the chair.
"Val, sit down," Lucan said, still smiling.
I walked to the door.
The pack stepped back and let me through, and nobody offered an arm.
Behind me, Lucan spoke to the elders loudly enough for the whole corridor.
"She's after attention. Wait three days. She'll be on my doorstep on her knees, asking for the mark."
"Let her go, Lucan," Hester said. "She's hurting."
It took me four minutes to reach the front doors.
Outside, the first snow of the year was coming down on the hall steps.
I stood in it with one hand pressed to my side.
Eight years I had never heard my wolf.
In the cold, I heard her.
One low, awake growl from deep in my chest, and it wasn't aimed at the dark.
It was aimed back at the door.
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