Chapter 123

Abby

I smiled until my face ached.

I smiled at the river Alpha with the beard like a hedge, who had brought his two daughters home and held my hands in both of his and couldn’t finish his sentence. I smiled at the gray Luna from the north, who looked me up and down as if she were pricing a horse and then said, unexpectedly, that she had been eighteen once too and it had been dreadful. I smiled at Harlan of Stonecrest and his wife, who told me twice that they had known Nathaniel, and at Bram of Ashford, who was barely older than me and so nervous he dropped his glove.

I smiled at all of them.

Behind me, on the dais, the two carved chairs stood side by side. I didn’t sit in mine. I didn’t look at his. But I could feel it there the whole night, the way you feel a draft on the back of your neck. Every Alpha who came through those doors looked at it. Some of them glanced and looked away. Some of them looked for a long time, and then looked at me, and I watc