He Staged My Funeral, Now His Wolf Howls at My Door novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: The Mark

A week later the registry hall in the Mackay Tower was full, and Eamon stood in front of it on his own two feet.

He had a scar through his ribs and a stiff left arm, and he had refused the chair.

I sat in the second row with Marla, who had brought tissues and was pretending they were for allergies.

The elders sat behind a long table, with the thin old woman in the middle.

"You asked to speak, Alpha," she said.

"I did."

He did not look at notes.

"Weeks before the ceremony I had Dr. Hazel Brennan sign a revocation of her name. The registry erased her. Her lab sat under my veto. Her work sat in my pack's patents."

"I did every bit of it so the north would not see where my weakness was. I told myself it was strategy."

He looked at the table.

"It was cowardice. I used her. She did not agree to be used. She was told to drink, and she did, and I stood on that stage and watched."

A hush came over the hall.

I had not known he would say it so plainly.

"Today I am undoing what I can," he said. "The revocation is void. Her name goes back into the registry, with her degrees and her patents, under her own hand."

"Her lab leaves my veto. It answers to no Alpha, now or after me."

"And I am asking this council to seat her as co-Luna."

The elders stirred.

"On her terms," Eamon said. "She sets them. If she doesn't want the title, she doesn't take it. If she takes it, she can overrule me in any vote that touches the lab or the clinic, and I will sign that tonight."

He turned and looked at me for the first time.

"That is what I can give her that costs me something. I am not asking her for anything in return."

The thin elder looked at me over her glasses.

"Dr. Brennan?"

I stood.

"I'll take the name," I said. "I'll take the lab. I'll take the title if the veto stays gone, and if the fourth sentence in the terms says I may leave whenever I want and keep every one of them."

"It does," Eamon said.

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