Father Sold Me to an Alpha, So I Signed My Sister's Name novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Verdict

Linnea's POV

The healer of the Gathering sewed Conrad's side shut on a bench at the edge of the ring, while the seven voted.

I sat next to him and held the lamp.

He did not make a sound, and he did not take his eyes off me.

"You're staring," I said.

"I'm going to stare for a long time."

"Hold still."

Across the floor my father knelt in the middle of the ring with his broken wrist in his lap and a wolf on either side of him.

Nobody had brought him a chair.

The woman in brown rose first.

"Alphas of Ravenmoor and the two chairs beside him," she said, and she did not look at the three men, "you are named in the ledger as men who took the Alpha of Greywater's money for your votes. You will not sit in this judgment."

The old man with the grey beard opened his mouth.

"Sit down, or be named with him," she said.

He sat.

The four who remained voted by laying a white stone in the bowl, one by one.

The keeper counted them aloud.

"Four stones, white. Guilty of the murder of Isabeau Hartwell. Guilty of forging the will that took the seat of Greywater. Guilty of paying Alphas for their voices in this Gathering."

He cleared his throat.

"Roderick Hartwell, you are stripped of your seat, your name, and your pack. The seven will keep you in the cells under this hall for the rest of your life. Your enforcers are disbanded, and the wolf who threw the silver goes in with you."

A rough sound went through my father's chest.

He lifted his head and looked at me.

He had stopped being handsome.

His eyes were red, his lip was split, and his hair hung in strings.

"Linnea," he said.

I stood up and walked over, and stopped an arm's length away.

"You're mine," he said hoarsely. "Whatever they do. You're my blood. You'll never be rid of me."

"I'm my mother's," I said.

I looked down at him.

"You spent three years trying to write my name on a page for someone else. You can spend the rest of your life knowing I wrote my sister's, and it was the best thing I ever did."

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