The Alpha King's Human Mate novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Law of the Seen

Taken to Greyhollow to protect her uncle, Tavia refuses to be a prisoner and the king's stitches tear where only she can reach them, until Sunniva promises she will be dead by supper.

Two of them went for the stairs.

That was what moved me.

The stairs led up to the apartment where my uncle was snoring over a crossword.

"Stop," I said, and I stepped into the doorway with my arms spread.

I am five feet eight.

The man in front of me was a wall with a beard.

"Whoever's up there has seen nothing," he said. "We'll see to it."

"You touch that door and I'll scream until the whole street wakes up."

"Osmond," said a rough voice behind me.

The wall stopped.

The man on the table had pushed up on one elbow, and the sheet had slid to his hip, and he was holding my stitches shut with his hand.

"Nobody goes upstairs," he said. "The old man is no one's business."

Then he looked at me.

"But she comes with us."

"I'm not going anywhere with six men who walked in without knocking."

"Then they'll go up the stairs," said the man called Osmond, almost gently. "It's your choice, miss."

I looked at the stairs, and I looked at the stack of hundreds on the counter.

I knew a hostage trade when I saw one.

I grabbed my kit bag off the hook, the big canvas one I take on farm calls.

"I need suture, saline, antibiotics and my own gloves," I said. "He's dripping onto my floor."

Osmond blinked.

"You're not a guest."

"Then I'm a vet tech with a patient, and he's not leaving without me."

Behind me the king laughed once, low, and then hissed and clutched his shoulder.

That settled it.

I left Mort a note on the counter that said gone on a night call, back soon.

It was the first lie I ever told him.

The room they put me in had no window and a stone floor.

We had driven two hours, the last of it on a road that was not paved.

A pine forest had closed behind us.

It was a long timber hall, built into the side of a mountain, with torches that were really torches.

The room had a table, two chairs and a bar across the door.

They had taken him somewhere else and left me my bag.

Osmond sat across from me with his hands flat on the wood.

"I'll tell you this once, so you don't hear it first from someone cruel," he said. "You are in Greyhollow. Nearly three thousand of us live in this valley, and no human has ever been told it exists."

"Us," I said.

"Wolves."

"I stitched a wolf."

"You stitched your king."

I put my hands under the table so he would not see them shake.

"What happens to me?"

"The old law is called the Law of the Seen. A human who has watched one of us change is killed, or kept here for life. The king says which."

"That's a very convenient law for the king."

He grinned, and it was the grin of a man who had expected me to cry.

"He has never used it," he said. "He's never had to."

"Then I want my phone and a call to my uncle."

"No."

"Then I want to see my patient."

"The king is being tended by the healer of the Seal."

"Is she a vet?"

"She is a healer with forty years of practice."

"Then she'll know that a through-and-through shoulder with a lodged slug needs washing out every six hours, and she'll know to check for fragments."

Osmond said nothing.

I pushed back the chair.

"Take me to him, or take me back. I don't do nothing, Osmond. It makes me mean."

The door slammed open before he could answer.

A boy in a leather jerkin stood there, white to the lips.

"Beta, the king," he said. "The stitches. He's bleeding on the council floor and he won't let any of them near him."

Osmond was already on his feet.

"He won't let the healer near him?"

"He says no hands but hers."

The boy looked at me.

"He says it's the vet's work, and it's the vet's table."

I picked up my bag.

The hall outside smelled of woodsmoke and wet stone.

Wolves lined both sides of the corridor, women, old men, boys, and every face turned to follow me with the same stunned hunger.

I kept my chin up and walked at Osmond's elbow.

In a high stone room Haldane Marrick sat on a bench with his back against the wall.

Blood ran down his chest in a sheet.

Four guards stood around him with their hands out.

He saw me, and the ice in his eyes cracked.

"There you are," he said.

"Sit still."

I dropped to my knees and cut the soaked gauze.

Half my stitches had popped.

"You did this on purpose."

"I tried to stand."

"Why?"

"They said they would put you in a cell."

I looked up at him.

He was grey with pain and he was grinning.

"I don't take orders from men who stand over me," I said. "Hold the wound."

He pressed his hand where I pointed.

Behind me I felt the room go very quiet.

A cool voice said, "Is this the one?"

A woman had come in on silent feet, tall and slim, with platinum hair to her waist, a silk blouse and a pair of pale grey gloves.

She looked at the blood on my knees and smiled at me.

"I'm Sunniva," she said. "I'm so glad you could join us, dog doctor."

She bent a little closer to my ear.

"The council sits at noon," she whispered. "You'll be dead before supper."

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