The Warlord of Wycliffe: The Dethroning of My False Mate novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Mark Unmade
Elowen's POV
I went up to the Stone before sunrise with Hester and nobody else.
The grass was white with frost.
Roderick was already on the slab, in a plain shirt, with a guard at each side.
His hands were free.
He looked at the circlet on my head and then at my shoulder.
"You came," he said.
"You said dawn."
"I said it could only be done by the one who made it." His voice was rough. "I never said I would do it."
"Will you?"
He did not answer right away.
Behind me the first wolves of Greyhollow were climbing the ridge, quietly, by twos and threes.
They stood at the edge of the circle, as before.
Dorian stood among them with one hand pressed to his bandaged side.
He had said he would not look away, and he did not.
"Tell me what it costs," I said.
"A bite is a promise," Roderick said. "The old law calls it a thread. To cut it, the maker puts his teeth to the scar and says the words of release. The one who wears the mark has to burn it from the other side. With her wolf."
"That's all?"
"For the one who wears it, it opens the bite again. It bleeds, and it will hurt." He swallowed. "For me, it takes the half of my wolf that was tied to you. I'll be smaller."
"Smaller."
"Quieter," he said, and gave a small, awful laugh. "Less Alpha. I won't be able to lead a pack, I think. Not even a pack of two."
"And you'll do it anyway."
"Nobody is making me."
"Why?"
"Because you asked me to the Stone in front of them all and said 'No' to my face," Roderick said, "and it was the first honest thing anyone has said to me in a year."
I looked at him for a long time.
"I'm not forgiving you," I said.
"I know."
"If you do this and walk away, I'm still not forgiving you."
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