Tempted by My Evil Lycan Stepbrother novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Yes

The whole Court was looking at us.

Sixty Alphas, the families from the north shore, the gallery full of cameras.

My mother had her hand over her mouth.

I looked down at him on his knees on the stone.

"Fine," I said. "Leander Marchmont. Was it a joke?"

"No."

"You said it was."

"I said it to hurt my father. I didn't know it was the only true thing I'd said in two years."

His voice carried to the roof.

"It was never a joke. Not on the dock. Not with your suitcase going under. You walked out of the lake and told me I'd buy your next dress from your mother in person, and something in me sat up and said, there she is."

Somebody in the gallery said, "Oh," out loud.

I knew the voice. It was the gate reporter.

"Get up," I said. "Your back."

He got up, slowly, and I didn't help him, because he'd want to do it himself.

The staff still lay on the stone table where Sybil had put it down.

The King picked it up.

He looked at it for a moment.

Then he walked across the Moon Hall to the tiny old healer, in her bathrobe and a borrowed coat.

"You're the oldest in the room," he said. "Will you read it?"

The healer looked at the staff.

Then at me.

"Human," she said. "Come here."

She led us up onto the dais, under the open roof, under the lopsided moon.

The moonstone in the staff's head flickered when she touched it, and then came up white and steady.

She took my right hand in her dry little one, and Leander's right hand in the other.

"Under the moon," she said, in a voice much bigger than she was.

She put our palms together.

The gray glow that had never quite gone out since the Rite caught.

Then the silver came.

It came up out of our hands slowly this time, not like an explosion.

It ran up our arms and over the dais and down the steps.

It crossed the stone floor, ran under the long table and around the boots of every Alpha in the room.

It climbed the walls.

It went up through the open roof and lit the underside of the clouds over the lake.

Down on the floor, the little boy with the burned hands laughed out loud.

"The moon has read them," the healer said. "She is his. Teagan Mackey. Do you take him?"

I looked at Leander.

He wasn't looking at the moon this time.

He was looking at me, the way he had in the healer's room at two in the morning, with nothing held back anywhere.

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend