Chapter 14: Kneeling in the Square

Alaric's POV

Agnes called me from the bridge at midnight.

"They've got her," she said, and the line went dead.

I stood in the Court yard with the phone in my hand.

I had no guards. I had no crown to give an order with. The Speaker had taken both an hour before.

I had a truck and a black wolf, and I used the truck.

I drove four hours through the dark with the heater off, because I didn't deserve it.

Wynne had told me to stay away from her.

I would. I had no plan to go near her.

I had one thing left to do, and it didn't need her to forgive me.

At dawn I pulled into Silver Creek.

The whole pack stood in the square.

Edmund had called them out at first light, and every house in the pack had sent someone.

He stood on the steps of the pack house with his silver ring and his grey beard. Delphine stood beside him in white.

"My daughter is home and safe," Edmund was saying. "The man who lied to this pack and to the Court of the Moon is a fraud."

"He took advantage of a girl who had just been cast out."

I walked into the square.

Heads turned. The talk stopped, one row at a time.

I walked straight through the middle of them to the open stone in front of the steps.

Then I knelt.

The stone was frozen. It went through my trousers at once.

"Silver Creek," I said. "I am Alaric Rooke. I held the crown of Montana until last night."

My voice carried. I had trained it to.

"Twelve days ago I stood in your clinic and said Wynne MacAulay was my mate. She wasn't. I had known her for one hour."

A hiss ran through the crowd.

"She believed me. She had no reason not to. Her father had just banished her, and I used that."

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