Rejected in Labor: The Lycan King's Stolen Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The King Kneels in the Snow

The Lycan King scents her, matches her coin to his, and says her wolf is alive and somebody buried it.

The man in the road walked toward me slowly, and he was shaking.

Nobody else moved.

Harlan and his wolves stood frozen where they were, and Dalton had stopped breathing.

The man stopped an arm's length away.

Then the Lycan King went down on both knees in the snow, in front of the whole pack, and bowed his head.

"I won't touch you unless you say I may," he said.

His voice shook.

"I have waited a long time to ask you something. Will you let me smell your wrist?"

I looked at Torren, still kneeling to one side.

"Say yes," Torren whispered. "He won't hurt you. He couldn't."

Nobody in Cold Fork had ever asked before touching me.

A week ago I begged my own mate for exactly this kind of test, and he laughed.

I freed one hand from the blanket and held out my wrist.

The king took it in both of his, very gently, and bent his head.

He breathed in once.

His whole body went still.

When he looked up, tears were running down into the lines at his eyes, and he didn't wipe them.

"Her scent," he said. "Her mother's scent, and mine underneath it. It's you."

"Your Majesty," Harlan said.

The king didn't look at him.

"I have the other half," he said to me. "Will you let me show you?"

He lifted the chain from his chest.

I took the coin from my neck.

He held his half out flat on his palm, and I held mine beside it, and neither of us pushed.

They pulled together on their own and clicked shut.

The wolf on the whole coin was complete.

I made a sound I didn't recognize.

The king laid his forehead against our joined hands.

"You were three weeks old," he said into the snow. "Someone walked into the nursery while your mother slept and took you out of her arms. She died the year after, still searching. I have turned over every kingdom for you."

My daughter had stopped crying.

My son was staring up at the man with wide dark eyes.

"I don't understand," I said. "I'm wolfless. The healer tested me at twelve. I've never shifted once."

The king lifted his head and looked straight at me.

"Then somebody lied to you," he said. "Or somebody has been making sure you stayed that way."

"That's absurd," Harlan said.

His voice had gone thin.

"Your Majesty, the girl is a poor orphan from Cold Fork. She was found at the riverbank, and we raised her out of charity. If there's a mistake, it's a kind one."

The king rose from his knees in one movement.

He was a head taller than Harlan, and the wolves behind Harlan took a step back without meaning to.

"Ask her," the king said quietly. "Ask her what she begged for."

Harlan said nothing.

"Miriam," the king said, and my name in his mouth made my throat close. "What did your mate refuse you?"

"A scent test," I said.

It came out cracked.

"A week ago. I begged him for one test, because the pictures were lies. I told him I'd never met the man. He said a wolfless female's word was worth nothing."

The king turned his silver eyes on Dalton.

Dalton had gone white.

"Then let me give you the test he wouldn't," the king said to me.

He took my wrist again and bent his head.

He breathed in for a long time, and this time he frowned.

He moved his face along my arm to the inside of my elbow, and then to my pulse.

"There is something under your skin," he said. "Wolfsbane. Faint, but old. It's in your blood."

Behind him, Harlan's face lost all its color.

I saw it.

I wasn't the only one who saw it, because Torren's head turned very slowly toward Harlan.

"Your wolf is alive, Miriam," the king said. "I can smell her. She's strong, and she's asleep."

He looked at the elders and the wolves of Cold Fork and the man who had put me out in the snow.

"Somebody buried her," he said.

My legs gave out then.

Torren caught me before I hit the ground, and my babies were still in my arms.

The king bent over us, and the last thing I saw before the dark closed in was his face.

His eyes were on my wrist, and he was whispering something to himself over and over.

I think it was my name.

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