Chapter 15: Odette's Price

We rode south with six of the patrol behind us.

The Hallowell mill stood where it had always stood, on the river bend with its great wheel frozen in ice.

The yard was full.

Every miller, carter and sack-boy in the valley had stopped work and crowded against the loading door.

Inside, my mother was crying.

My father stood beside her with his hat in his hands and his eyes on the floor.

Odette stood on the grain scale in her white wool coat, with the Holt signet ring on her finger and a folded paper held high.

"There she is," Odette said, smiling at me. "I did hope you'd come to see it."

"See what?"

"My mill."

She waved the paper.

"Mother and Father signed it over to me on the night Bastian and I were promised. It is the dowry of the Holt Luna. Everyone knows it."

"I'm sure that's what you told them," I said.

"It is the law!"

"It isn't. Give it here."

She snatched it back against her chest.

"I am Luna in every way that counts," she said. "The pack just doesn't know it yet."

"The pack knows," said the grizzled warrior from the door. "The pack's had a long talk about you."

A few of the millers laughed.

Odette's cheeks flushed pink.

"Mother," she said sharply. "Tell her."

My mother lifted her wet face.

"Mara, please," she said. "Your sister only wants what is fair. You are always so hard. Let her have the mill."

"Fair," I said.

"You were given a husband. You were given six years of a title. Odette has been given nothing."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Six Years As His Luna. He Only Wanted My Sister from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.