His Pups Called Me Mama. He Called Me Nobody. novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Rebuilding

"To the death," Aldric repeated.

Clover stirred against his chest and he lowered his voice.

"Then I'll fight him."

"You can't," the rider said. "It's his claimant against hers. Alpha Mossgrave stands for his ward. Only the heir stands for herself."

"She's been a wolf for a week."

"Eight days," I said.

Everyone looked at me.

I bit off the thread and handed Mister Buttons back across the table, whole again.

"Eight days," I said. "And thirteen more to go. Mags."

Mags was in the doorway on her crutches.

"Kid."

"Can you teach me to kill a man in thirteen days?"

Mags looked at me for a long moment.

"No," she said. "But I can teach you not to die. That's most of it."

The next morning, Aldric sent forty Langtry wolves over the north ridge with saws and trucks full of lumber.

He went with them.

I just looked up from the ash meadow, where Mags was knocking me flat for the sixth time, and there was the Alpha of the Langtry pack on top of the Silver Moon hall in a work shirt, nailing down a roof beam.

"Your Highness," Mags said. "Eyes on me."

"He's on my roof."

"He's on your roof. You're on your back. Get up."

For four days I fought Mags in the morning and carried boards in the afternoon.

My palms had healed to pink scars.

The twins argued about where every window should go.

The old woman with the bad hip sat in a camp chair and pointed at things with her cane until they were done right.

The cook fed eighty people out of the old kitchen without one complaint, except about everything.

On the third day Aldric brought the children.

Arlo had been asking every night at bedtime when he could see the castle.

"It's not a castle," I told him.

"Mags said it's a castle."

"Mags lies."

"I do not," said Mags. "I exaggerate. It's royal."

Arlo walked all around the four black walls with his hands behind his back.

Then he went and found Mags.

"What color were the doors?" he asked her. "Before."

"Blue," Mags said. "Why?"

He didn't tell her.

He went and told his father.

On the fourth evening, Aldric and two of his men hung the new front doors in the old stone frame.

Painted blue.

Clover had done most of the bottom half, and some of the step, and herself.

I stood in front of them a long time.

I didn't cry.

I wasn't going to do it in front of eighty people and a four-year-old covered in paint.

"Arlo asked," Aldric said quietly behind me.

"I know."

At dusk the Langtry trucks went back over the ridge.

The children went with the cook and the twins, asleep in a pile in the back seat.

Mags looked at me, and at Aldric, and at the blue doors.

"I'm sleeping at his house tonight," she said. "Big bed. Good pills. No reason. Goodnight."

She went.

Then it was just us, and the hall.

It had a roof now.

Real beams, raw yellow pine, smelling of sap.

A fire in the old hearth, the one my mother used to stand in front of.

The cook had sent over a feather mattress and a pile of wool blankets and laid them in front of the fire, which was not subtle of her.

Aldric stood by the doors with his hands in his pockets.

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend