Claiming the Spare Twin novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: A Year and a Day

Dorran's POV

A year later, on the last morning of the claim, I woke before dawn and listened to her breathe.

Tilda slept on her side with one hand under her cheek, in the narrow bed under the Marrow roof.

We had never replaced it.

She said it was hers, and I had learned to fold myself into it.

The silver crescent on her shoulder gleamed in the grey light.

Twelve months and a day since I put my teeth there.

At moonrise tonight the claim would lapse.

The bond would not end, because a bond between two wolves does not take orders from a treaty.

But the law would let her go.

She could walk out the Marrow door and across the river, and no Moot would call it a breach.

I lay there and made myself think about that.

I had a speech.

I had worked on it for a month and said it in the mirror twice.

Keegan had told me it sounded like a funeral.

At sunrise I went across the river to my own lodge.

I had a thing to do there first, and she was not to be in the room for it.

The hall was full when I rang the bell.

Ironwood wolves filled the benches in their work clothes, with coffee.

Hester sat in her chair by the fire with her cane across her knees.

She looked pleased with herself, which I had learned to dread.

I went up onto the platform where I had stood a year ago, and I looked out at them.

"Twelve months ago in this room," I said, "I lifted a veil and called a woman the other one."

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