He Traded Me for Land, Now I Write the Rules novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Terms

In Greenwich Adeline reads Everett five rules, he signs them and adds one line of his own, and Toby's call from the Ashgate gate says his wristband stopped working at midnight.

The house in Greenwich sat at the top of a gravel drive.

One window was lit on the ground floor.

Everett Lyle opened the front door himself.

He was tall and in shirtsleeves.

His nose had been broken once and set a little crooked.

Reading glasses were pushed up into his sandy hair.

He saw me looking at them and took them off.

"Miss Hartigan."

"Mr. Lyle."

"Everett is fine. The driver says you wrote something in the car."

"I did."

He led me into a library with a fire going.

A bottle of whiskey stood on the desk with two glasses beside it.

He didn't pour either one.

I held out the clipboard instead of sitting down.

"Read it out loud," I said. "I want to hear whether you can say it."

He pulled the glasses back on and took the page.

"Rule one. Toby's care is registered in your name, never an Alpha's." He looked up. "Your brother."

"Yes."

"Agreed. Rule two. You have your own room, and the key to its lock is yours alone."

"Agreed," I said for him, and he nodded.

"Rule three. No bite, and no Alpha voice used on you, ever."

He stopped there for a second.

"That one I'll take twice. Agreed."

I waited for him to argue.

He turned the page over to check the back and found nothing.

"Rule four. You leave whenever you say, and I drive you myself."

He glanced at the dark window.

"Agreed. I'm a decent driver."

"Rule five."

"Rule five," he read. "You are told what everything costs before you are asked to pay it."

He read that one silently first.

Then he read it a second time, aloud.

It took him longer than the others.

"Agreed," he said, and his voice was a little rougher.

I noticed it, and I didn't know what to do with it, so I let it go.

He took a pen from the desk and signed the bottom.

Then he added a line in handwriting that leaned hard to the right.

I read it across the desk.

Nobody comes into your bed unless you ask.

"That isn't one of mine," I said.

"No. It's mine, so it's on my side of the page." He capped the pen. "You can cross it out."

I didn't cross it out.

I tore the page free of the clipboard and folded it small.

"You paid in land for a woman you'd never met," I said.

"I paid in land for a woman I'd never met in person."

He took the glasses off again.

"Tell me what you want to be called."

It was the first time in four years anyone had asked me that.

"Adeline. Not Addie."

"Adeline." He didn't smile, but he nodded once. "I'll show you your room."

It was on the second floor, at the end of the hall.

The lock was new, with a brass key still in it.

I turned the key over in my palm and put it in my pocket.

The room beside mine had a narrow bed, a desk and a lamp already on.

On the nightstand sat a small charger for a hearing aid.

I stopped in the doorway.

"How do you know about his ear?"

"It's in the Council registry, under his name." Everett kept his voice level. "Anyone who read the file would have it."

"You read the file."

"I read it tonight, while you were on your way."

He didn't offer it as an apology or an excuse.

It was a fact, and I could check it.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't. It's a charger."

I might have said something else.

My phone rang in my pocket.

The screen read Toby, and the time said 3:12.

I answered on the first ring. "Toby, what's wrong?"

His voice came out thin and fast. "Hey, Addie. Don't freak out."

Behind him, a man was talking, flat and bored.

"Okay, so, my wristband stopped working at midnight," Toby said.

"Where are you?"

"Outside the dorm gate at Ashgate. The guard won't let me in or out."

"What does he say?"

"He says I'm not on anyone's list."

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