Chapter 1 #2
“Did he?” Father MacKaity shook his head. “Nay, lass—I don’t think so. I never heard him speak of such.”
“He only spoke of him two or three times when we were first married,” I told him. “He was a half-brother only—the two of them had the same father but different mothers, I believe.”
“Well now, I suppose if he could be located…but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
” He shook his head. “Even if an Alpha with the Jamison crest on his right bicep walked through the door right now, I doubt the Pack would accept him. The Alphas are already gearing up for the challenge and we have several that think they’d be the best new leader of the Pack. ”
He nodded to the corner of the funeral parlor where a group of big, muscular men stood.
The Alphas of our Pack were eyeing each other like they were ready to start the Alpha Challenge right then and there, though Carter wasn’t even cold in the ground yet.
Harris Murdoch, especially, looked ready to commit murder to get to the seat of power.
He was a tall man in his early forties—just a year or two older than me—but still in his prime.
He was strong as a bull and enjoyed lifting seemingly un-liftable objects for fun or just to show off.
Personally, I thought he would make a terrible Pack Leader—he was too vain and too worried about his own pride to steer the Pack on a straight path. Carter, for all his faults, had kept the Pack strong—mostly by refusing to allow any kind of deviance from the Pack Laws at all.
Most notably, he refused to allow anyone of his Alphas to break the Unbreakable Laws.
He’d had a young Alpha put to death for breeding his mate in Fur Form once—even though the girl had cried and begged and said she wanted it.
After her husband was dead, she had been turned out into the forest, naked and alone to die as her own punishment.
It was a vivid memory for me because it was the one time Carter had struck me.
I had begged and pleaded for the young wife’s life at her trial—Marcella had been one of my only friends in the Pack.
Most of the other women shunned me, fearing my barrenness might be catching.
It was whispered that I was cursed by the Moon Goddess and that was why I couldn’t bear any children.
“Stupid bitch! She broke the Unbreakable Laws—she must die! Don’t you ever question my decisions in front of the Pack again!
” Carter had shouted and had backhanded me so hard, he’d split my lip with the heavy gold ring he always wore.
It bore his family crest on it—a wolf’s head howling at a crescent moon with a single diamond star above it.
It was the same crest I had tattooed on my right upper arm to show his ownership of me.
For though the males in our Pack show a Moon Mark—which appears naturally, like a birthmark from the day of their birth—the females do not.
We must take our husband’s Moon Mark or crest as a tattoo or a brand when we get mated to them.
I eyed the ring now, my tongue exploring the inside of my lip, where the cut had been.
It was easy to see because the mortician had folded Carter’s hands on his chest, and it gleamed in the chilly overhead light.
If he’d had a son or an heir, the ring would have been passed to them.
But since he had died without either, it would be buried with him and a new ring would be made for the new Pack Leader, when he emerged victorious from the Alpha Challenge in a few weeks’ time.
The memory of that ring hitting my mouth filled me with sudden rage and I sucked in a muffled breath.
How dare Carter turn my only friend out to die?
I didn’t understand why she and her husband had done what they had done, but I didn’t believe that he had forced her.
She had loved Jack with all her heart—they’d had a warm and caring marriage—the exact opposite of my cold, dry joining with Carter.
They should have been allowed to leave the Pack and go their own way instead of being killed.
“Ah, I can see that you miss him—please take this, lass.” Father MacKaity—clearly mistaking my sudden emotion for grief—pressed a clean white handkerchief into my hand.
“Thank you, Father.” I took it with a nod and pretended to dab at my eyes.
I was glad that I had chosen to wear a veil.
No one could see my face under the black lace, so I was free to let my expressions show what I felt.
Though to be honest, I’d spent so many years with a pleasant smile frozen on my face, I wasn’t even sure my face could show true emotion anymore.
It had showed plenty when we’d first been married but Carter used to lock me in my room when my face twisted into what he considered “inappropriate” expressions when we were out in the town. So I learned to show nothing—to feel nothing.
Which was why I felt nothing now as I stared down at his corpse—or so I told myself.
I felt nothing as I stared at the man who had robbed me of the best years of my life, who had left me cold and lonely for the entire time we’d been together.
I might have gotten over the gap in our ages if he had been kind to me—if he’d cared even a little.
I was so young and so starved for affection when I first came to him—I had just wanted someone to love me… to hold me…
“Well, well—sorry the old boy is gone.”
This new voice came from my right. Father MacKaity had wandered off to speak to other grieving Pack members.
I jerked my head up and saw Harris Murdoch looking speculatively at the corpse.
He didn’t sound sorry that Carter was gone—no sorrier than I was, anyway.
As always, he brought a strong smell of sour beer, stale body odor, and cigarettes with him that made my nose want to shrivel in disgust.
“He was a good husband,” I said, because that is what a grieving widow is supposed to say.
“Good enough to you, anyway—I hear he left you everything, even though you never gave him any pups.” He ran a hand over his balding head, eyeing me speculatively.
“I…tried my best,” I faltered, hating him for bringing up my shortcomings again. Would no one in the Pack ever let me forget my barren womb? Did no one care or understand how much it hurt—how I still mourned my empty arms and the fact that I would never hold a baby of my own?
“Anyway, the old boy was loaded, wasn’t he?” Harris looked at the heavy golden ring on Carter’s hand with its four-carat diamond star shining above the crescent moon and the wolf’s head. “Left you quite a tidy little fortune plus Wolverton Manor.”
I said nothing to this—it wasn’t my place to say.
It was true I was quite a wealthy widow, but it wasn’t as though I would be allowed to spend any of that wealth on travel the way I wanted to.
To leave the site of my husband’s grave would be a scandal.
No, I would be stuck here as Mistress Vivienne of Wolverton Manor with the official title of, “The Moon Widow” all the rest of my days.
Even in death, Carter had me trapped.
“You know, you’re not a bad looking woman, despite being past your prime,” Harris went on, surprising me out of my dull gray thoughts. “I might think about taking you on as a mate after I win the Alpha Challenge. It’s a damn shame to let all that wealth go to waste on a woman.”
He turned his sharp gray eyes on me, and I was glad all over again that I was wearing a veil. I couldn’t have hidden the loathing on my face otherwise.