My Alpha Told Me to Stop Needing Him. So I Disappeared novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Mark

By the end of summer I couldn't see my own feet, and I had never been happier.

Ember Creek had put up lanterns across the long hall, and the whole pack had come.

Tobias was there, in a good jacket, zipped to the chin out of habit, with a dozen Redwood wolves behind him.

Corbin stood at the back by the door.

He had come as a guest, and he had brought a belt.

It was a plain brown belt that he'd made himself, badly, with the stitching running crooked, and he'd left it on the gift table without a note.

I saw it from across the hall, and I let it lie.

Ewan took my hand at the center of the floor.

His aunt stood by with a cup of water, and the six-year-old held the ribbon, solemn as a judge.

"Anneliese Larkin," Ewan said, and the hall went quiet. "You came to my door with a hole in your back and nothing in your hands."

"I had a pup," I said.

A laugh went around the walls.

"You had a pup," he agreed. "And you've made this a better place in every way I can count. I'd like to mark you in front of anyone who wants to see. You can say no here and now. You can say it tomorrow."

"I'm not going to say no."

"Say yes, then. For them."

"Yes," I said, loudly. "Mark me. I'm done waiting."

He turned me gently, and drew my braid over one shoulder.

I felt his breath on the back of my neck, and then his teeth, quick and sure, in the curve where my neck met my shoulder.

It hurt for a second.

Then warmth poured down my spine, and it was mine, and nobody else's.

It ran in both directions.

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