I Cut My Alpha's Bond, So the Lycan King Came Hunting novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: What He Knew

Dacre rose from the lichen between us and Halvard, and as he rose he stopped being entirely a man.

I put my hand flat on his back.

"Stand down," I said.

"He's Eckert."

"He's the only living witness who isn't mine. Stand down."

The black claws held for a heartbeat longer, then drew back into his hands.

Halvard did not come closer.

He got down on his knees in the pine needles, thirty yards below the nest, and put both hands on his thighs.

He looked at me, and at Dacre, and at the sheet of paper lying on the rock.

"You found it," he said. "The date."

"You knew about the date."

"I knew there was a paper." His voice was thin and cracked, but it was his voice. "I didn't know what was on it. Let me say it. All of it, in one go, or the fever takes it back. Please."

I looked at Dacre.

He looked at me.

I nodded.

"The night we were bound," Halvard said, "after the feast, my father took me into his study and shut the door. I was twenty-seven. I thought he wanted to talk about the Luna's duties."

He breathed in.

"He said you were the Lowwater shooter. He said the Lycans had been hunting you for nine years and the Guard had kept you alive by moving you around. He said it was getting harder. He said the best place to keep a witness is in a family."

Nobody moved.

"I asked what I was supposed to do. He said marry her. Put her under our wards, where her scent can't be tracked, and under Eckert law, where a bound wife can never testify against her husband's house. He said if I refused, there were other ways to keep you quiet."

"Other ways," I said.

"He meant the Guard. He meant a car on a mountain road."

I felt Dacre go still beside me.

"I was a coward," Halvard said. "I said yes. I told myself it would be a kindness. That I'd be gentle with you and you'd have a roof and a name and nobody would shoot you. And I said the vow on the ridge, and I said 'no lie between us,' and I looked at you and I lied."

The black thread in his arm was moving.

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