My Fated Mate Was a Lie, Now the Alpha King Wants the Truth novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Rut
"Nobody touches him," I said.
The captain of the Council's guard stopped three paces away with the manacles dangling from his fist.
"Miss Wrexham, stand aside."
"I'm your lock." My voice came out steadier than my knees. "Your writ binds me, so it's my say who goes near the King. Take another step and I'll show you what a lock does when it's afraid."
I had no idea what that was.
He didn't know that.
His eyes flicked to the nine grey cords at the horseshoe, and none of them helped him.
Footsteps sounded at the back of the hall.
Forty women in plain wool walked down the centre aisle, the ones from Hollin, with their bare wrists out in front of them.
They came three abreast and they did not hurry.
The one with cropped hair stopped at my left shoulder, and the rest fanned out behind me in a line.
Behind them the palace guard drew all at once, eighty blades singing out of eighty sheaths.
The captain looked at the line of women, and the guardsman beside him took off his own helmet and put it under his arm.
"My sister's in that row," the man said quietly. "I'm not doing it."
The chair stood up.
"The writ binds at the new moon," she said, in a voice that had lost all its warmth. "In three nights. We will come for her, with or without the sovereign's consent."
"Come in daylight," said Cassian, in a rasp. "Bring a witness."
They filed out.
Nobody gave them a cheer.
The palace gates shut behind the last grey coat, and eight men dropped the bar.
"Three days of this," said Hester in his bedchamber, an hour later, with her sleeves rolled to the elbow. "His rut will run that long, and he'll want to do something stupid."
"I'm not stupid," Cassian said from the window.
"You are sweating through your shirt like a draught horse."
She set down a jug of water, a plate of cold chicken and a flask of her bark tea.
"Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for a day. I'll bring bread to the sill."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Fated Mate Was a Lie, Now the Alpha King Wants the Truth are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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