Chapter 9: The Tree Line

I told Conall everything in his truck, with the napkin open on my knee.

He listened to the whole thing, from the tin to Braden's last sentence, without interrupting.

Then he bent his head over the crushed leaves and breathed in.

"That isn't chamomile," he said.

"I know."

"I don't know what it is. I'll take it to the pack healer tonight."

"Don't tell anyone why."

"I won't."

He folded the napkin and slid it into his shirt pocket, and he started the engine.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Wherever you want to be walked to."

I almost laughed.

I did not want to go to Hattie's.

I did not want to go back to his house, where the council had stood on the rug.

"The creek," I said.

We stopped at the top of the path, and he waited, and I put out my hand.

It was late afternoon, and the light slanted low between the pines.

At the bridge, I stopped.

I had been holding something for five years, and it was heavy, and I knew it was not fair.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Anything."

"When my parents died, you were Alpha. You'd been Alpha six years."

"Yes."

"The office sent a card. It was printed. It said the pack grieved with the family."

"I remember."

"You didn't come to the funeral." My voice cracked on it.

"The whole pack stood in that cemetery in the rain, and I looked at every face for the Alpha's. You weren't there."

He was silent.

"I know it's stupid," I said. "I know you didn't know me. But I was nineteen and I'd lost everybody, and you never even came."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Beta's Son Never Knew Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.