He Rejected Me the Night I Birthed His Twins novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: The Barrel at the Lodge

The old hunting lodge sat in a clearing eight miles up the Black Fir ridge.

We reached it at midnight, Torin and I and the Beta, with a dozen Ironwood wolves at our backs.

Lanterns hung from every post on the porch.

Sixty wolves stood in the yard, in their coats, silent, with their faces turned up.

Rhoda stood on the porch in her dark wool coat with her bare right hand held out in front of her.

Beside her stood a wooden barrel, with a tin ladle hooked on its rim.

"Here she is," Rhoda said, in her clear sweet voice. "The girl who wants to cut you loose."

"I'm not cutting anyone loose," I said.

"She has twelve in the river already. Twelve who look at the moon and can't remember what they were."

"That is a lie."

"Is it? Ask the Beta whether he slept."

The Beta stood beside me, silent.

I had not asked him.

I had not asked any of them.

I had no answer to that.

"I'll tell you what she hasn't," Rhoda went on, to the yard. "The last white wolf who did what she is doing didn't live to see spring. The bond takes the one who hands it back. It kills her."

"Rhoda," I said.

"She didn't tell you. How kind of her not to."

A murmur went through the sixty.

I saw it travel through them, fear taking hold in one face after another.

"Here is what I offer," Rhoda said, and laid her hand on the barrel. "A tonic. The same my family has made for generations. It keeps a wolf calm and whole until a proper Alpha is chosen. Nothing is cut and no one dies. One cup each, and you sleep through the winter safe in your own beds."

"It's moonbane," I said.

"It's medicine."

"It's what she gave me in my tea for seventeen years."

"It's what kept you alive."

She smiled at me, and for the first time the smile was pure.

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