He Swore Flowers Would Kill Him, Then Came Home Smelling of Roses novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: The Ward Paper

Torin's POV

They stood on the far bank of the river in a line, a hundred wolves in human skin.

Maureen Harlan stood in front.

She had put on her good grey coat and her pearls. She looked like a woman about to chair a church committee.

I had two hundred Redfern wolves at my back and the shallows between us.

Clara stood on my left. Her hand was cold in mine, and the silver crescent showed at the collar of my flannel on her shoulder.

I would have cut off my own arm before I let anyone touch her.

"Torin Brask!" Maureen called across the water. Her voice carried well. "I come under the border law!"

"Say what you came to say."

"I come for my ward."

A rumble ran down the Redfern line.

"She is not a ward," I said. "She is a grown wolf, and she's standing next to me."

"She is the ward of the Cedar Hollow pack by the written hand of its council." Maureen drew a folded paper from her pocket. "Signed twenty-five years ago, and witnessed. A child of unknown blood, taken in and raised at the pack's expense."

She held it up so the sun caught the seal.

"By border law, no pack may keep another pack's ward without her guardian's release," she said. "I do not release her. You have harbored her for nine days."

"Eight," Clara said under her breath.

"I would call that kidnapping," Maureen went on, "if I were not a forgiving woman."

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