Claiming The Spare Twin novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: What The Elders Smelled

At dawn Greta brings the Council, Finlay claims Linnea in front of them, and they set a Moon Trial in seven days.

The door of my room banged open at dawn.

I was alone in the bed, in my nightshirt, with the window wide and Finlay's scent soaked into every sheet.

He had left an hour before. I had pretended to be asleep when he kissed my hair.

My mother came in first, in her gray Beta jacket, with the old elder and four members of the Council behind her.

Behind them stood Odette, in a plain robe, with her hair unbrushed.

The elder drew one long breath through his nose.

"Alpha MacDougall," he said, to nobody. "Here. All night."

Greta's face turned the color of paper.

"You little whore," she said, quietly, so only the room could hear. "You let him climb in. Do you know what you've done?"

"Nobody let anyone do anything," I said.

I got out of bed and stood up in front of seven people in my nightshirt.

My knees wanted to fold. I locked them.

"Finlay came to my window because the bond pulled him there. He didn't ask my permission to feel it, and I didn't ask his."

"The bond," the elder said slowly, like it was a foreign word. "A wolfless girl cannot hold a mate bond."

"Then why did the Alpha growl at my window in front of the whole pack?"

Nobody had an answer to that.

"The law is the law," said a woman of the Council. "The Alpha takes the strongest she-wolf. The Moon Count named a bond, not a wolf. Without a shifted wolf she can't be the strongest."

"She has no wolf at all," my mother said. "She has never had one."

It was the first time I had heard her say it like a fact instead of an insult.

Something cold crept down my back, but I didn't know why yet.

The door opened again.

Finlay stood there in yesterday's jeans and a fresh shirt, with a gray, sleepless look on his face.

He walked past my mother like she was furniture. "Listen to me, all of you."

He took my hand.

He did it in front of the Council, in front of my mother, and in front of Odette.

"I told Linnea last night not to say anything until I had spoken to you," he said. "That was cowardice. I won't ask her to hide for me."

I looked at him.

"Linnea Lundqvist is my mate. The bond came on the last stroke of midnight, and I am not going to pretend otherwise to make the law easier."

"Alpha," the elder said, very gently, "the law cannot be ignored."

"Then find a way to follow it."

He held my hand tighter.

The Council whispered. My mother's eyes were burning holes in me.

At last the elder tapped his staff.

"There is a way," he said. "The Moon Trial. The she-wolves of Ashfall run the ring under the full moon, and the Moon shows the pack which of them is strongest. It is held in seven days."

"Good," Finlay said.

"If Linnea Lundqvist shifts and runs strongest, the Alpha mates her, and the law is satisfied." The elder looked at me. He wasn't unkind. "If she does not shift, she is banished from Ashfall as a false claimant, and the Alpha mates the strongest who does."

I heard my own pulse in my ears.

"And if I can't shift?" I asked. "I've tried for six years."

"Then Odette Lundqvist runs the ring alone," said the Council woman, "and she will be Luna."

Finlay's hand went tight enough to hurt.

"Seven days," I said. "Fine."

My mother turned on me.

"You'll embarrass this family in front of the whole pack," she hissed. "You'll fail, and you'll take your sister's night with you."

"I'll fail?" I said. "You've never even let me try."

It came out before I thought about it.

For one second my mother's face did something strange.

Then it closed again, smooth as a door.

The Council filed out. The elder went last.

Finlay squeezed my hand once and followed him, because the Alpha had to.

That left my mother, Odette and me.

My mother stalked out without a word.

Odette stood in the middle of my room, small in her plain robe.

I braced myself.

She crossed the room and put her arms around me.

"I'm not angry," she said into my shoulder.

Her voice was thick.

"I'm really not angry, Linn." She pulled back and wiped her eyes. "Whatever happens at the Trial, we'll still be sisters. Promise me."

"I promise."

She smiled, and it was the old warm smile from the courtyard.

But over her shoulder, on the bed, I saw her gaze drop to the rumpled sheet where Finlay had been.

And just for one moment, it was the face of someone making a plan.

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