My Family Sent Me to the Lycan King to Die, So I Walked In Alive novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cecily's Face

Her brother and father learn who volunteered, her sister cries on cue, and Saskia is sent away with no goodbye while Cecily wears her mother's locket.

Cecily was waiting for me outside the hall at first light.

She had sat on the stone bench by the side door all night, because her blanket was still folded beside her.

"You were gone from the pantry for hours," she said, and her voice had no tremble in it. "I saw the light in the Beta's window."

I said nothing and kept walking.

She stood and stepped into my path.

"Everyone knew Father wanted a volunteer. I wondered who would be stupid enough." She tilted her head, smiling. "I should have guessed it would be you. You always do the noble thing, and nobody ever thanks you."

"Move, Cecily."

"Or what? You'll tell Jonas I was unkind?"

Her eyes flicked past my shoulder.

Footsteps were coming down the corridor, two sets, heavy and even.

I watched her face change.

The smile went first.

Then her shoulders dropped, her chin came down, and her eyes filled until the tears were ready to fall.

In an instant she was the girl our whole pack loved.

I almost laughed.

My brother jogged the last few steps toward us, and my father walked behind him with his hands clasped at his back.

"Father, we don't have to worry anymore," Jonas said. He was grinning. "The Beta just told me. Somebody volunteered for the king."

My father's shoulders dropped.

"Good. Whoever she is, her family is to be paid and honored for it. Tell the Beta I want it done properly."

Then Jonas looked at me, and the grin went hard.

"You were out all night," he said. "In the Beta's office. Saskia, it was you?"

"My name is in the ledger."

"You did it to spite her." He pointed at Cecily without looking at her. "She's scared out of her mind, and you couldn't stand watching her be safe."

"I did it so she wouldn't have to go."

"Liar."

Cecily made a small sound in her throat.

It was a whimper, soft and well-timed, and Jonas turned to her at once.

"What happened?"

"Nothing." She wiped her eyes. "Why does Saskia always treat me so cruelly?"

I stared at her.

"I only asked where she'd been," Cecily said. "I was worried about her, so I asked. And she told me to move, and she was so angry."

"She cornered you again," Jonas said.

"I was sitting on the bench!"

"Saskia." My father said it flatly. "Apologize to your sister."

"She isn't my sister."

"She has lived under my roof fourteen years."

"And she has never once been mistreated under it," I said. "I'll apologize if she can tell you where I went last night and why."

Cecily's mouth opened and closed.

My father looked from her to me, and I saw him decide that none of it mattered.

"You volunteered," he said.

"Yes."

"Of your own will, in the ledger, in your own hand."

"Yes."

"Then it's done, and it can't be taken back. A volunteer's name is a vow." He glanced at the ring on his hand and then at the door. "The escort leaves at first light. You will be on the north road with them."

I waited.

I waited for him to say my name the way a father says it, or to ask why.

He did not.

Jonas folded his arms. He would not meet my eyes now.

"Don't expect anyone to see you off," he said.

"I don't," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "Send my family's payment to the families of the girls who went before me. Nobody ever has."

My father said nothing to that either.

I turned to go up the stairs for my cloak.

"Saskia, wait," Cecily called.

She hurried after me with her sleeves pulled over her hands, and she stopped one step below me so that her face was level with mine.

"I'll never forget what you did," she said softly. "Thank you."

She meant it to sound sincere, and it nearly did.

I looked down at her throat.

There was a chain around it, thin and silver, and an oval locket hanging from it.

I knew the scratch on the clasp.

My mother had caught it on a door the year before she died.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

Cecily touched it, and her eyes were wide and innocent.

"Father gave it to me this morning. He said I'd had a terrible fright and deserved something to hold on to." She smiled. "Isn't that kind?"

That locket had lain in my father's desk for nine years, with my mother's picture inside it.

I had asked for it twice.

Both times he had told me it was too painful for him to see it on anyone.

Cecily tucked it into the neck of her cardigan, patted it flat, and went back down the stairs.

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