Claiming The Spare Twin novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Blood On The Courtyard

Blood ran down Odette's arm and dripped onto the white carpet.

"Linnea, stop!" she screamed. "Please! Don't!"

She dropped the letter opener and it rolled to my feet.

I did what anyone would do. I bent and picked it up.

It was heavy and silver and slick with her blood, and it burned my palm.

The door crashed open.

Finlay came in first, and behind him came my mother and four of her guards.

Odette staggered backward against the desk, clutching her arm, with her face crumpled and wet.

"She wanted me to drink the tea," she sobbed. "I said no. I told her we would find another way. She grabbed it off my desk and cut me."

"That's a lie," I said.

I held the letter opener out to show everyone it was in my own hand, and I realized how it looked.

A cold dread seized me.

I was holding a bloody knife over my bleeding sister.

"Put it down," said one of the guards.

"She did this to herself," I said. "Finlay, you heard. You were in the hall."

"I heard talking," Finlay said slowly. "I heard you say no. I didn't hear her cut herself."

"You heard me say I wasn't drinking."

"Yes. And I heard the scream."

"Linnea," my mother said, with terrible, quiet satisfaction. "Drop it."

I dropped it.

It rang on the floorboards.

Two guards grabbed my arms and wrenched them behind my back.

"Let her go," Finlay said, and his voice shook the glass in the window.

The guards flinched, but they didn't let go.

"Alpha," my mother said, "a she-wolf of this pack has been wounded with silver by a rival for your bed. The law says the pack must see it."

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