Chapter 8: Forty Minutes

Katja's POV

"Whose treaty?" I said again.

Corwin put the phone down on the desk very gently.

"Mine," he said. "My father signed it twenty years ago, with yours. The Alpha of Blackthorn marries the Hallam heir."

The tea in my mug stopped shaking, because I had stopped breathing.

"The heir is Odette," I said.

"That's what the Council believes. That's what I believed when I came to the ceremony."

"You came to the ceremony to look at my sister."

"I came to refuse her."

"And then you saw me instead."

"Yes."

I set the mug on the bookshelf, carefully, so I wouldn't throw it.

"So that's why you were in the gallery," I said. "You weren't there for me."

I heard my own voice go thin.

"You were there for a wife."

"Katja."

"You looked at the heir, and then you looked at the Sovereign, and you thought: this one is better."

"That is not what happened."

"Then tell me what did."

He opened his mouth, and I watched him pick his words, and I hated that he had to pick.

"I saw your wolf," he said. "I knew what it meant."

"A white wolf means you win the northern passes and a Council seat for life."

"It means nothing to me but you."

"Prove it," I said.

I walked toward him around the desk.

"You stood in that gallery for forty minutes."

He went still.

"I counted too, Corwin. I stood at the end of that table with my sealed card."

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