Fate Picked Me, the Alpha Passed, and I Felt Nothing novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Pack Supper

The pack supper was on Saturday night, in the hall, with sixty-one casseroles and the long tables pushed end to end.

It was the first one with a head table that had two chairs in the middle.

I sat in one of them in a clean flannel with my braid down my back and my left palm tucked in my lap.

The silver crescent had not faded.

It pulsed faintly whenever he looked at me, and it did now.

I felt his nerves through the bond like a hand clenching in my chest.

"Sit," I said, under my breath. "You're making me dizzy."

"I can't."

"Dray."

"I have to say it standing."

"Then say it."

He stood.

The hall quieted, and seventy-four wolves turned toward him with forks in the air.

Odile was at the second table with a loaf of bread in each hand.

Joss sat at the end of the head table with his arms folded, enormous and calm.

Dray looked at the room.

He did not look at his hands.

"I refused my mate in front of you," he said. "I want to say what that was."

Nobody coughed.

"It wasn't a law. It wasn't a duty. I was afraid, and I used the law to be a coward."

He did not look away from them.

"I was handed the hardest thing of my life, and I walked away from it in front of every one of you."

His voice held.

"She has my apology already, face to face."

He breathed.

"You are owed something different, and I mean to pay it tonight."

He turned and looked at me then.

My throat went tight.

"I owe the pack three things," he said.

"First, the true law of the bond. I'll read it at every Naming, in my own voice, so nobody is ever lied to again."

A low murmur of approval.

"I owe you a council that isn't one man's. Joss will run the election for the chair, and I won't vote in it."

Joss lifted his chin.

"And I owe Rue Tolland everything."

He took a breath.

"She owes me nothing. Whatever she gives me, she gives because she picks it."

His voice shook for the first time.

"I'll spend every day proving I'm worth the picking."

Someone at the back began to clap.

Then someone else.

Then the whole hall, standing, a roar of hands and boots on the plank floor.

I stood up beside him.

I felt his shaking and his gratitude and his terror pouring through me in a solid hot wave.

I took his hand.

His palm lit against mine.

"Sit down," I said into his ear. "Before you fall down."

"Yes, boss."

He sat.

He picked up a fork, put it down, and picked up his water glass with a hand that would not stop trembling.

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