Chapter 16: The Council Fire

The council fire burned in the center of the Stonering.

Every Alpha in the realm sat in a half circle around it.

Hadrian stood on the far side with Cecily at his shoulder.

My father sat in the second row with his hands on his knees and his eyes on the ground.

My mother was not there.

Madoc stopped at the edge of the firelight, and I felt his hand settle against the small of my back.

It was a light touch, there and gone.

I still felt it through my coat for the rest of the hour.

The oldest elder was a woman with a white braid down to her waist.

"Nerys Lowther," she said. "You have been asked here to answer a charge."

"Whose charge?"

"The Alpha King's."

Hadrian stepped forward.

He had put on his black coat with the silver clasp, and he looked tired and wronged and very kingly.

"My uncle has taken a rejected woman into his tent," he said.

"He took her in the middle of a fever, out of her head with grief, and he has kept her there."

A murmur went around the half circle.

"She is not a prisoner," Madoc said.

"She is a wolf with a broken mark. She cannot judge her own mind."

"Ask her."

"Her father has already spoken to the council," Hadrian said. "He fears for her."

He turned to my father.

"Alpha of Ashmere."

My father stood slowly.

He did not look at me.

"My daughter has always been headstrong," he said.

"The king's rejection has broken something in her. She is overwrought. She should come home and rest."

"Father," I said.

"I am speaking, Nerys."

"You are speaking about me."

"I am speaking for you," he said. "Someone has to."

The word sat in the firelight.

I had waited twenty-three years for that man to say my name warmly.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Claimed by His Lycan Uncle from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.