My Alpha Killed Our Pup for His Pregnant Mistress novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Breakfast With the Writ

Fern lays a mate severance on Torin's plate in front of the whole pack, and the guest Alpha at the gate says she is still his until moonrise.

The elder stamped the writ at seven-forty with a hand that shook, and Kurt Kingscote signed under Dessa's name.

Dessa had come running across the courtyard in her green parka the moment she saw the Elders' door open.

She had put her arms around me before she looked at the dress, and then she looked.

"Oh, Fern," she said. "Oh, no."

"It's gone, Dess."

"I know. I'll check you properly after. Let me do it now."

"After," I said. "I'm going to breakfast."

She signed the writ with her face wet, and she didn't argue.

The old elder folded it in thirds.

"It takes hold at the next moonrise, and he can't veto it," he said.

"The Luna's right comes before the Alpha's. It's older than any of us."

"I know the law," I said.

"Then I'll walk in with you. The law needs a witness at the table."

The packhouse dining hall was loud and warm when we came in.

Two hundred wolves had stayed over for the gathering.

The long tables were full of eggs, coffee and people who had slept well.

Torin sat at the head with Margo on his right, in my chair.

She had a blanket across her knees and a plate of toast with the crusts cut off.

Nobody noticed me until I was halfway down the aisle, still in the dress, with my knees black and the hem stiff.

The noise went out of the room one table at a time.

I reached the head of the table and laid the writ on Torin's plate, beside the eggs.

"What is this?" he said.

"Read it."

He did, and he laughed once, short and sure.

"You can't be serious. Over one night on the Stone?"

"Over what I said before the Stone."

"You lied about a pup to get out of a kneel, and now you're crying severance."

He pushed the paper an inch toward me with one finger.

"Take it back. We'll forget it. I was hard on you, and Margo has forgiven you."

Margo laid her hand on his wrist.

"Please, Fern," she said, and her eyes were full. "We're family. Whatever I did, I'm sorry for it."

She had said it so softly that half the hall leaned in to hear.

"Torin," I said. "Ask Dessa what she found when she scanned me three weeks ago."

He glanced at Dessa, who stood by the door with her chin up.

For a moment something moved in his face.

He looked at my dress and the stiff dark hem, and I watched him start to put it together.

Margo's fingers tightened on his wrist.

"The Luna is upset," she said, to the table. "Of course she is. Torin, let her go and cool off."

He looked at her.

His face closed again.

"I'm not asking Dessa anything," he said. "Sit down, Fern."

The order hit me square in the chest.

I felt the bond pull my knees toward the chair, after five years of habit.

I stood there and shook with it.

Then Sorrel dug in her heels somewhere under my ribs, and I said, "No."

The old elder cleared his throat behind me.

"Alpha Dray, under pack law the Luna's writ stands without your signature," he said. "You have no veto here."

"Every wolf in this hall has just heard me say so."

A chair scraped.

Torin had gone white around the mouth.

"Then you leave with what you came in with," he said, loud enough for the back tables.

"You get nothing from this house. The Luna's rooms belong to the Alpha. Your things stay where they are."

"Keep them," I said.

I took the thin silver chain at my throat and left it on his plate, on top of the writ.

It had been his grandmother's. He had put it on me the night we were bonded.

Then I walked down the aisle between the tables with my back straight.

Nobody stopped me, and nobody spoke.

I did hear Margo behind me, small and wounded.

"Torin, she's twisted it all up," she said. "I don't know why she hates me."

By the gate my legs gave out for a second.

I put a hand on the stone post.

My coat was in the packhouse, my phone was in the packhouse, and my mother's house was ninety miles away.

A car engine idled at the curb.

Kurt Kingscote leaned on the hood in his dark wool coat, with the heater running and the passenger door already open.

"The moon comes up at nine-forty, in daylight, this time of the month," he said. "Until then you're still his, and he knows it."

"I know."

"He'll send wardens for you the second you're out of sight."

"I know that too."

"Then get in," he said. "I live on the other side of the river, and his wardens can't cross it."

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