The New Moon Mate のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 81 - チャプター 90

Rourke and his two men went up the stairs with their hands tied and the Kessler wolves took them across the field to the pack house. Erik Renn went up too, with June on one side of him and Arthur Renn on the other, and he did not say a word and he did not look back.I stayed in the round room with the two stones.They were both lit. It was a pale light and it came out of the marks and it filled the room and it did not go out and it did not flicker. I put my hand on the heart and it was warm and I put my hand on the piece and it was warm and the mark on my shoulder was warm and the three of them were the same warmth.Elias came and stood beside me.“Two days,” he said.“Two days.”“And then the new moon and the circle and the three Lunas.” He looked at the stones. “And then what?”“And then the land is claimed and the curse is finished and the Council falls.” I took my hand off the stone. “And I have to decide what to do with the whole of it.”He was quiet for a moment.“Not tonight,”

Ada came into the storeroom with her stick in her hand and looked at the crates."Four hundred and six," she said."Four hundred and six," Clara Renn said.Ada went to the nearest crate and opened it and took out a paper and read it and put it down. She opened another and read a paper and put it down. She did it six times and then she stopped and put her hand on the crate and did not say anything."Alpha," I said."Every one of them is a Luna," Ada said. "Every one of them has a name and a pack and a parcel number and a price. And every one of them was filed and stamped and registered and nobody in the Council of Alphas ever saw one of them." She turned around. "I have been on the Council for forty years. I have signed the register every year. I have never seen a single name in this room.""Because the clerk did not send them to you," I said. "He sent them to the territory and he kept the copies here and he put the originals in the vault in Boise and he told the Alphas that the claims

I got Harlan up off the ground and onto the pack house steps and Maeve came through the crowd with her bag and put her hand on his chest and told everybody to get back.Harlan was breathing and his eyes were open and his hand was cold and he would not let go of my sleeve.“Wren,” he said. “The pack.”“The pack is fine,” I said. “The pack is standing in the square and nobody is fighting.”“The Corrigan boy said Dale.”“The Corrigan boy is nineteen years old and he is frightened and he has just watched a Councilman confess to murder in front of him. He does not know what he is saying.”“He knows what he is saying.” Harlan’s hand tightened. “Half the pack is standing with Dale because Dale stood up in the square and told the truth and took the punishment. That is what a wolf does when he wants to be Alpha. He confesses and he takes the punishment and he lets the pack see that he is not afraid of it.”I looked at the square.Dale was still standing at the back with his hands tied and the

Ada did not let it go.She came down the steps with her stick in her hand and she stood in front of Dale and she did not look at me.“Beta,” she said. “You used silver in a challenge. That is not a fighting matter. That is a matter for the Alphas.”Dale did not move.“I know,” he said.“Silver in a challenge is the same as silver on a fence. It is not a fight. It is a killing with a thing the pack cannot see.” Ada put her stick on the ground. “You have been a wolf in this territory for thirty-four years and you have been the Beta for six and you have used silver on a wolf of your own pack in front of seven Alphas. There is no rank in this territory that you can hold after tonight.”“I know,” Dale said again.“Then give me the knuckles.”Dale picked them up out of the snow and put them in her hand.Ada turned them over.“Where did you get these?” she said.“The Council sent them to me in 1973,” Dale said. “They came in a box with the money and a note that said they were for the wolf wh

We went down the co-op road in the dark with the lanterns and the rifles and the shovels and there were more than thirty of us. There were fifty. There were more than fifty.The Council company was at the gap where the north fence met the co-op road.They had two trucks and a canvas over the back of one and twelve men standing in the road with rifles and two men in the cab of the front truck. They were not in Council coats. They were in canvas jackets and work boots and they looked like men who had been in a truck for a long time.The man in front was tall and he had a lantern in his hand and he came forward when he saw us.“Beta,” he said. “I am looking for the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack.”“You have found her,” I said.He stopped.“Her,” he said.“Her.”He looked at me for a moment. Then he looked past me at the pack and the rifles and the shovels and he did not look happy about any of it.“My name is Rourke,” he said. “I am the Council’s district officer for the north. I have a