Fate Picked Me, the Alpha Passed, and I Felt Nothing novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Naming Moon
The October moon came up over Round Lake a year to the night, big and orange and a little lopsided.
I stood on the Stone Landing in my best flannel with my braid pinned up under the blue bandana.
The pack was around me, seventy-four wolves, and the boards I had rebuilt held every one of us.
I had run my hand along the rail on the way in.
It was good cedar from the Hartley mill, and it did not creak.
The keeper stood at the water's edge in her grey shawl with the cane.
Dray stood beside me.
He wore the navy coat with the sleeves pushed up, and his sandy hair was tousled by the wind.
I felt his heart go through the bond.
I felt him not be afraid.
That was the part I still could not get used to.
"Pack," the keeper said. "Before the moon speaks, the Alpha has something to read."
Dray stepped forward.
He took a folded paper from his coat and held it out in front of him, and his voice carried across the water.
"This is the law of the refusal," he said. "It comes from the old record, and I am reading it for the whole pack to hear."
He read it plainly.
He read the old words in the old order, and nobody on the shore looked away.
He read that the refuser keeps the bond and carries the whole weight of it, and that the refused is free until she chooses otherwise.
He read that it can be made again only by her words, of her own will.
When he finished, he folded the paper and put it away.
"I broke this law once," he said. "Never again."
He stepped back to my side.
The keeper began the names.
She closed her eyes and said them one by one, in her small dry voice.
Pairs came forward to clasp wrists with a gasp and a light.
Two young wolves from the marina.
A widow and a widower who had been neighbors for thirty years and were suddenly very shy.
The woman who ran the hardware store, and a man I didn't know, who had driven in from Plattsburgh.
The silver crescents flared in the dark, and the pack cheered each one.
The keeper opened her eyes.
"The moon has no more names tonight," she said.
I stepped forward.
The keeper looked at me, and a smile cut a thousand lines into her face.
"You are not named, Rue Tolland," she said.
"No. I'm not here to be."
I turned to Dray.
"Nobody picked me for you," I said, loud enough for the back row. "Nobody picked you for me. We've both already been picked and let go and picked again."
The pack was so quiet I could hear the lake.
"I'm the carpenter. I'm good with my hands. I name you, Dray Wetherell, with a clear head, in front of everyone who saw the worst day of your life."
His eyes were swimming.
"I name you my mate," I said. "Mine."
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