Father Sold Me to an Alpha, So I Signed My Sister's Name novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Your Luna

The Alpha of Blackmere walks past the bride in white in front of both packs and says she is not his Luna; her father orders Linnea to kneel in her place, and she tells him to name her rogue.

Both packs filled the great hall of the Hartwell house within the hour.

Greywater stood along the left wall.

Blackmere came in through the front doors in black coats, forty wolves walking in step behind their Alpha.

I stood on the landing halfway up the stairs, where I could see everything and nobody could see me.

Daphne came down the main staircase in a white gown.

It was the dress she had hung on her wardrobe door on Tuesday, pressed and ready.

I had walked past it three times that week and never wondered why.

Her hair was pinned up with small white flowers, and she was glowing.

My father stood at the foot of the stairs with the contract folded in his hand and his chest thrown out.

"Alpha Mallory," he said. "Welcome to Greywater. Let me present your bride."

Conrad Mallory crossed the floor.

He was six foot three, with black hair, a hard jaw and a black coat that was still wet from the road.

He did not look at the dress.

He stopped a long stride in front of Daphne, and his nostrils flared.

His eyes went from dark brown to gold.

Daphne lifted her chin and smiled, and her hand shook only a little.

"I'm Daphne," she said. "I signed this morning."

He turned his head.

He looked along the wall, past my father, up the stairs.

His gold eyes landed on me and stayed.

Everyone in the hall followed them.

My whole body went hot, and my hands were suddenly cold.

I knew that look.

I had seen it once before, at the Midsummer gathering three years ago, across a bonfire, when he had said one word to me and I had walked away from him.

Conrad turned back to Daphne.

"No," he said.

Her smile held.

"I'm sorry?"

"You are not my Luna."

The hall went silent.

Forty Blackmere wolves did not move, and Greywater stopped even breathing.

My father laughed, too loud and too late.

"Alpha Mallory, a joke at a bonding is bad luck. The page is signed. Greywater ink holds. You know the law."

"I know it." Conrad's voice was low and flat. "The ink holds on paper. It does not make my wolf follow."

"Your wolf will follow your signature."

"My signature is not on that page yet."

My father's hand tightened on the contract.

"You've had three years to say you didn't want a Hartwell."

"I said I did," Conrad said. "I said it to you three times. I asked for the eldest."

He looked up the stairs at me again.

"I asked for Linnea."

A murmur ran down the Greywater wall.

My stepmother, in the front row in her best grey silk, shut her eyes.

Daphne's smile finally cracked.

She stepped in front of him and put her small hand flat on his chest.

"Conrad, please. Linnea doesn't want you. She tore the page up twice rather than take you. I do."

He looked down at her hand.

He did not move away, and he did not cover it.

"Take it off," he said, quietly.

She did.

Her face went white to the lips, and the flowers in her hair trembled.

"This is an insult to my house," my father said.

"This is a fact," said Conrad. "Your daughter signed a name that was not hers to give. I will not mark a woman who was written in as a trade."

My father turned.

He pointed up the stairs, and his whole arm was shaking.

"Linnea. Come down here."

I did not move.

"Come down and stand beside your sister. You will kneel before the Alpha of Blackmere and take his mark in her place, and you will do it now, in front of both packs."

"The page has Daphne's name on it."

"The page will do as I say."

"You can't say that," I said. "The ink doesn't change. You told me that yourself when I was twelve."

He came up three steps.

His voice dropped so only the stairs could hear.

"Do it, or I swear to the Moon you will not sleep under this roof tonight."

I looked at Daphne.

She was crying now, real tears, and she kept her eyes on me.

She was not looking at me like a sister.

She was waiting to see what I would give up.

I looked at Conrad Mallory.

He had not moved.

He stood there with his hands open at his sides, and his gold eyes did not ask me for anything.

I looked at my father last.

Three contracts.

Three years.

A cottage with an old woman in it, and a locked door at the end of the upstairs hall that I had not walked through since I was twelve.

I came down two steps and stopped.

"I won't kneel to him," I said. "I won't kneel to you either."

"Then you're no daughter of mine," my father said.

I met his eyes.

"Then name me rogue."

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