On My Drowing Day, He Announced His Bonding to Her Chapter 10
John pulled the leash, the security photos, and the bell out of his pocket.
“Lily didn’t fall in that river on her own. You drowned her with your own hands.”
“That scar on your wrist is all the proof anyone needs.”
“You were jealous of Violet. You framed her. And half
an hour ago you tried to strangle this same dog with this same leash.”
The evidence was undeniable. The Pack members exchanged looks.
Scarlett stared at John, and her sobbing cracked straight into laughter.
“Fine. I did it. All of it.”
“But I just wanted to win, for once! Why does she get to
do nothing and still get to bond with you the second
she waves that vow around?”
“Lily deserved it. Violet deserved it. They both deserved every bit of it!”
Nathan slammed the old records down on the stone table.
“Nobody deserved any of it.”
“Look closely, everyone. Twenty years of these
so–called Groom’s bondings are documented right here.”
“Not one of them was ever really the Groom. Every
single one was a sacrifice, handpicked by our own kind.”
“Always the same profile. No father, no brothers, no
family standing behind her, or somebody standing in someone’s way.”
Nathan pointed straight at Elder Moonsong.
“The Groom’s Mark was never anything but a cover story for your own crimes.”
Elder Moonsong shook with rage and tried invoking the old law to shut him down.
“That’s nonsense! This is Pack tradition!”
John cut her off cold.
For the first time, he stood on my side as the Pack’s legal counsel.
“No tradition outranks Styx Pack law.”
“Deliberate drowning is premeditated murder. Forced
sacrifice is unlawful imprisonment, plain and simple.”
“From today on, anyone who uses the Groom’s Mark to
hurt a Pack member answers to me. I’ll make sure they rot behind bars.”
“I’m this Pack’s legal counsel, and I don’t make empty threats.”
The Pack members holding weapons backed off fast.
They feared the supernatural. They feared prison more.
John turned to face me, eyes wet.
“Violet, I’ve taken care of everything.”
“I’ll make it right. I’m calling off everything with
Scarlett. Tomorrow we go to the Elders and finish the Bond.”
“We start over.”
I looked at him and said it flat, no heat behind it at all.
“You still don’t get it, John.”
“I clawed my way back from the dead. Not so I could bond with you.”
Every day after that, he showed up outside my house.
One morning, he knelt outside the gate.
In his hands, a brand new bonding vow.
He’d stayed up all night writing it.
His eyes held the same shame and desperation I’d once
carried, the day I brought my own vow to him.
“Violet, all you have to do is say yes and we go finish the Mark in front of the Elders right now.”
“This time I swear I will never let go of you again.”
Love showing up this late is really just a joke.
I pushed the gate open and took the vow out of his hands.
“John.”
“Seven years ago, you took Lily out of my arms and handed her to Scarlett.”
“Seven years later, at that river, you grabbed her hand first. Not mine.”
“You never made a mistake in the moment. Every single time, you knew exactly who you were
choosing.” He shook his head, crying.
“That’s not true. I just thought she needed me more.”
“I really did love you. I just let her fool me.”
I didn’t yell at him. I didn’t tell him he was forgiven either.
“Love doesn’t count if it only shows up after I’ve already died once.”
“It doesn’t count if you only believe me once every last
piece of proof is laid out in front of you.”
“Your love sits too high up for me to reach. I don’t want it.”
I turned around, walked back into the yard, and shut the door behind me.
Scarlett was handed over to Pack Enforcement,
charged with deliberately killing a Pack member’s wolfhound and suspected assault.
The whole Pack turned out the day they took her away.
After that, nobody in the Pack ever brought up the
Groom’s bonding again.
Nathan folded the Groom’s Mark, the old records, and the list of missing she–wolves into an appendix for the archive.
He wrote it out plain.
This was never the supernatural. It was a rotten
tradition kept alive by cruelty.
Once I fully recovered, I got certified as a lifeguard.
I became the only patrol lifeguard on Black Hollow River.
Once, countless innocent she–wolves had been forced
into blood–dyed veils and pushed into that black water.
Now I stood on the bank in a bright rescue uniform.
Every she–wolf who ever fell into that water, I was pulling her back out.
John came by often, standing far off, just watching me.
He built Lily a beautiful grave and cleaned it every single day.
He quietly did chores for my mother, and fought legal battles for free for every victim buried in those old records.
But I never said another word to him.
Nathan sometimes stopped by with newly revised drafts.
One evening, watching the sun sink over the water, he turned and asked me.
“Violet. What’s the plan, going forward?”
I let the wind hit my face and smiled.
“Protecting every she–wolf in this Pack. Making sure no living wolf is ever forced to bond with the River Groom again.”
Years later, there were no more stories of black coffins and blood–dyed veils along Black Hollow River.
Just a new sign standing on the bank.
DANGER–DEEP WATER–NO SACRIFICES.
And every young she–wolf in Styx Pack, on the full
moon of her eighteenth year, would hear this story from her mother-
That the Moon Goddess’s real gift was never a threat from something evil. It was the right every wolf has to
choose the bond that belongs only to them.