His Mate, Her Choice novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: What Halvard Said

Dain's POV

I found Halvard in his study an hour after sunrise, alone, with a glass of whisky he had not touched.

I shut the door behind me and turned the key.

Wynn had told me to bring Halvard down.

She had not told me how, and I had stopped asking her permission for the things I could do with my own hands.

"Your Majesty," Halvard said. "You look as if you haven't slept."

"Sit down."

"I'm sitting."

"The order that ended Hollowmere," I said. "Who wrote the report behind it?"

He turned the glass a quarter turn on the blotter.

"We had this conversation eight years ago."

"We are having it again."

I crossed the room and put both hands flat on his desk.

I could feel my wolf pressing up under my skin, and I did not push it down.

"There were no conspirators," I said. "There was no poison. My father's physician told me the truth before he died, and I have had three years to think about what to do with it."

Halvard looked at my hands.

Then he looked at my face, and his shoulders eased now that he could stop pretending.

"Well," he said. "You took your time."

"Say it."

"The report was mine." He sat back. "The seal on the letter was cut from a real one. The physician's note was written by my clerk, who is dead now. The list of names I drew up over two evenings."

"And my father."

"Your father had a bad heart and a worse temper. He would have dropped dead in the spring if not that autumn." He shrugged. "I only gave you somewhere to put the grief."

I had imagined this moment for three years.

In every version I broke something.

I stood with my hands on the wood and felt nothing in them but a long, cold steadiness.

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