I Bore His Heirs, Then I Vanished novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Moon-Marked

Morven's POV

The old elder of Duskmoor crossed the river alone at dawn.

He did not bring a guard. He walked up the Greywater bank with his staff in both hands and his white eyebrows wet with fog.

I was on the hall steps with Linnet at my breast when he reached the gate.

Torin stood up from the bench beside me.

The old man stopped before us and lowered himself, with a great deal of effort, onto both knees in the mud.

"Don't," I said. "Please get up."

"I will not, Lady."

"I'm not a lady. I'm a carrier."

"You are the daughter of the last Alpha of Ashenfell." His voice broke on the last word. "That was the name of our pack before the Winter Bite. The Brandreths renamed it Duskmoor when they took it."

I could not feel my hands.

"My father," I said slowly, "was a cook's husband who died of a fever."

"Is that what you were told?"

"It's what Delphine said."

"Her father was the old Alpha's steward. He took you out of that hall alive." He touched his chest. "I saw him do it. I was forty feet away, bleeding on the flagstones, and I never said a word for twenty-seven years. I am ashamed."

Linnet stirred against me.

I looked down at her, at the white lock lying against her brow.

"Show me," I said. "Something that isn't a story."

He held out his hand.

I did not understand at first, and then I did.

He was looking at my throat, at the small silver moon pinned at my collar.

I had worn it every day since I was a child in the servants' wing. It was the only thing I owned that was not pack-house issue.

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