All Chapters of Bound to a Dying Man: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

We buried my grandmother on the hill above the harbour two days later.The priestess said the words and the whole of the coast came. There were Blackthorn wolves and rogues and highland wolves and two Ravenscar wolves that Callum sent and there were the nine and the fourteen and the seven and the twelve and there was a woman of ninety one who had been in a room at the top of a house for sixty years and had been carried down the hill in a chair.Ailsa. The woman who was not my grandmother and who had known what the house was for and had been kept in a room for it.She had spoken on the way down the hill. Three words. She had said, out of the room. And then she had not spoken again.I put my hand on the earth of the grave and I said my grandmother's name out loud in front of the whole of the coast, and it was the first time it had been said in forty years.Mairi.And when it was done I went down the hill with Ronan and I sat on the step of the pack house and I did not say anything for a

Ilsa came up the hill with the paper in her hand and two Council guards behind her and she did not come into the house.She stood in the yard."Luna," she said. "Alpha. The Council has sat in the north and it has heard the evidence of the keeper Eamon and the keeper Cael and the lord of Ravenscar and it has taken a vote."The yard was filling. The nine and the fourteen and the seven and the twelve and the whole of the pack came out of the house and stood in the yard."Say it," I said."The Council finds that the founder broke the chain without a vote and without the leave of the Council of Alphas, and that three wolves died of it." Ilsa's old face was grey. "The Council has voted to declare the founder a rogue and to strip her of the Luna's seat and to order her out of the Blackthorn territory pending a final judgment."The yard went up.It went up in a roar and I stood in the middle of it and did not move."Silence," Ilsa said.The yard did not go silent."Silence," she said again, a

The rider was still standing in the yard when the second rider came down the hill.The second rider had a Council flag on his saddle and a writ in his hand and he did not get off his horse. The horse was lathered and the rider's face was grey with dust and he had ridden hard from the north."Fiadh, healer, of the Blackthorn Pack," he called. "By the order of the Council of Alphas, you are declared a rogue and you are to leave the territory of the Blackthorn Pack before sundown. If you are found within the borders after sundown you will be taken into custody and held for trial."The yard went up."Silence," Ronan said.The yard went silent.The rider looked at his writ."The order is signed by three elders and countersigned by the keeper of the seal," he said. "It is not a request."I stood in the yard."Then I will go," I said.The yard went up again."Fiadh," Ronan said."Ronan. I have been declared a rogue by a Council and there is a rider on a horse with a writ in his hand and ther

I was four days north of the Blackthorn border and I was in a cove on the north coast waiting for the wind to turn when Nessa found me.She came down the beach at dusk with her skirts held up and her boots in her hand and her hair coming out of its tie, and she had been walking for two days. There was a cut on her forehead and mud to her knees and she was so tired she could barely stand."Healer," she said. "Luna.""Nessa." I got up off the rock. "What are you doing here?""I came on the boat with Bran's wolves and I got off at the wrong harbour and I have been walking since." She sat down on the shingle and put her boots on and her hands were shaking. "I have been walking for two days and I have not slept and I have a thing to tell you and I have been rehearsing it all the way and now I cannot remember any of it.""Breathe," I said.She breathed."Ronan has stopped eating," she said.I stood on the shingle."Say that again," I said."He has stopped eating. It has been four days since

I sat down on the edge of the bed."Padraig," I said. "Say the whole of it. From the beginning. And do not leave anything out because you think I cannot take it."Padraig put the book on the table and sat down in the chair by the fire."The reversal is the oldest rite in the book," he said. "It is older than the breaking and it is older than the binding and it was made by the first of the old blood before he made any of the others. It is a rite for a false bond that has been broken and has left a mark and it brings the bond back into a wolf and breaks it clean.""Into which wolf?""Into the wolf it was taken from." Padraig looked at me. "Your mate."Ronan sat up."Into me," he said."Into you." Padraig put his hands on his knees. "Alpha. The false bond was tied to your life and when it came out of you it took a piece of you with it. That is why your shoulder would not close and that is why you have been tired since the spring and that is why a keeper could read to you for two days and