Bound to the Alpha King novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Nothing Passes

The rite-keeper lay in her narrow cell behind the temple with her white eyes open and her tongue the colour of a plum.

Nobody had heard her cry out.

Nobody had seen anyone come or go.

"Same as the servant," said Brack, from the door.

He had the grey look of a man who has been up all night and is not finished.

I knelt on the stone beside the cot and put my fingers to the old woman's wrist.

There was no pulse, and I had known there wouldn't be.

She was cold.

She had been dead for hours.

"She was the only one who knew the rite by heart," Embla said from behind me.

"Every word of it."

"The only one who could say how the bond works."

"Who gains from that?" said Rorik.

He stood in the doorway with his arms folded and his collar buttoned to the throat.

He wouldn't look at me.

He hadn't looked at me since we got out of bed.

I understood that and didn't like it.

"Anyone who wants to say what the bond is, with nobody left to correct them," said Embla.

"The Chancellor," said Brack, and spat on the floor.

By midday the Chancellor was in the throne hall with all the lords of the Stone Court gathered behind him.

He stood before the dais with his hands folded and his eyes cast down in sorrow.

"The rite-keeper is dead," he said gently.

"A great loss."

"She was the Moon's own voice."

"And in her absence, Majesty, there are those among the lords who ask a hard question."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Bound to the Alpha King from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.