The Alpha King's Human Mate novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: What They Wanted
It was past midnight before I got the last of the wounded into a bed.
I climbed to the king's room with blood to my elbows and a thermos in a plastic sleeve in my bag.
Haldane sat on the edge of the tub in the washroom, shirtless, waiting.
I cleaned the cut across his ribs and restitched the one over his shoulder.
He watched my hands the whole time.
"You've gone quiet," he said.
"I'm doing sums."
"Do them aloud."
I tied off the last stitch and sat back on my heels.
"Seventy-two hours from the shot," I said. "I cut the slug out and missed the splinter. If I'd missed it for good, you'd have died around the fourth morning."
"In your clinic," said Haldane.
"On my table. Or in my arms. Or in this room."
I looked up.
"There's a law about a human who is present when a king dies, isn't there?"
His face changed.
"A human at the death of a king is hanged without trial," he said slowly.
"Why?"
"It is the oldest law we have. It was written for assassins."
"So the poison didn't have to be fast."
"No."
"It had to be slow enough that I'd be holding you when it finished."
The room was very quiet.
"They never wanted you dead of a bullet," I said. "They wanted you dead in my hands."
He took my wrist.
His fingers were shaking.
"The Seal would have hanged you before my body was cold," he said.
His jaw worked.
"And with the king gone, the regency falls to the highest Elder."
"Brangwen."
"Or her daughter, if she can be made to look fit."
"Who told the hunter which clinic to drive you to?"
"No one," said Haldane. "I think no one needed to."
I stared at him.
"I was awake in the truck bed," he said.
He looked at his hands.
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