Chapter 12: The Charge

By noon the Seal Room held more wolves than it had walls for.

They stood on the benches and in the aisles, and a row of boys perched in the rafters.

I stood in the middle of the stone floor in my own jeans and a clean shirt, with Mort's black bag at my feet.

Haldane sat in the king's chair at the far side of the ring.

He had not been allowed to sit on the dais.

"The king is the accused's mate," Brangwen had said, as she rose. "By our own law he cannot judge, and he cannot speak."

The Elders had agreed, two to one.

So he sat with his hands on his knees and his jaw like a stone.

He did not look at me, because looking would have broken him.

Brangwen stood at the centre of the dais with her thorn ring flashing.

"Tavia Linde," she said. "A human, brought into this valley under the king's hand."

She paced the dais.

"On the night of her arrival the king was wounded, and under her care the wound rotted."

A murmur ran round the room.

"I call the healer of the Seal."

The thin woman in the green apron came forward.

She did not look at me.

"I examined the king's shoulder on the first night," she said, in a voice like paper.

"And?"

"The wound was clean. There was no poison. The rot began after the human put her stitches in."

"You are certain?" said Brangwen.

"I am certain."

"Thank you."

"Excuse me," I said.

Brangwen turned her head slowly.

"A human has no voice in the Seal Room unless a wolf of rank speaks for her," she said.

"I speak for her."

Osmond stepped out of the crowd.

He wore his battle leathers and his beard braids were neat, and for the first time I saw how big he was.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Alpha King's Human Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.