The Alpha's Regret: Losing His True Mate novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hearing

On the Stone, a rival Alpha and Faye's own jeweler receipts clear her and shame Imogen into an apology, and Imogen whispers that Faye will watch the wedding from the back row.

Imogen peeled the tape off in the yard, and Muriel put the ring in her cardigan pocket without a word.

She kept it overnight.

The next day at noon, the Stone Hall was full.

It was a round room of old gray rock with a stone circle in the middle and three elders on a bench at the far end.

Muriel sat in the middle, with the other two elders on either side.

Jarrett sat in the Alpha's chair behind them.

He had not looked at me once since I came through the door.

Imogen stood in the circle in a cream dress with her hands folded.

Muriel had handed the ring back to her at the door, and she had the tape back under the band.

I stood across from her with my clipboard.

"Say what you have to say," the oldest elder told her.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Imogen said, with a small crack in her voice. "At my own party, my ring vanished. Faye had just left the room. I only want the pack to know how it looked."

"It was found," Muriel said.

"Under a table. After she had time to drop it there."

"She left the room before the toast was done," Muriel said. "Is that all?"

"She was at the party all night with her eyes on my finger," Imogen said. "I'm not saying she meant to steal it. I'm saying a woman who has loved the Alpha for eight years might not be herself on the night he gets engaged."

A murmur ran around the stone walls.

Heat went up the back of my neck.

"That's not an accusation of theft," I said. "That's an accusation that I'm in love."

"Is it wrong?" Imogen said.

"Faye," the oldest elder said. "Your answer."

"I didn't take the ring," I said. "I was in the hall with my head against the wall. Nobody saw me, because I wanted nobody to see me."

"And no one can say where you were," Imogen said sweetly.

"I can."

Darek Wardell stood up from the back bench.

The elders had asked him to come as a witness, and he had driven over before dawn.

He walked into the circle in his work boots with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

"Alpha Wardell," the oldest elder said. "State what you saw."

"The Luna-elect lifted her glass for the toast," Darek said. "The ring slid off her finger and hit the floor behind her chair. It rolled under a table. I watched it go."

"You're not even in this pack," Imogen said.

"I'm the one who was sitting at that table."

"You've tried three times to take our Gamma. Everyone here knows you'd say anything to make Stillwater look bad."

"I'd rather say the truth and make Stillwater look bad," Darek said.

Somebody laughed in the back and stopped quickly.

Imogen turned her face to the room with her eyes wet.

"You see how it is," she said. "Two people who want her gone from this pack, and me, the only one who wants to hold it together."

"Two?" Muriel said.

"Alpha Wardell and Faye."

"Faye is leaving this pack in eight nights," Muriel said. "She's the only person in this room who has said so."

The oldest elder looked down at the clipboard I held.

"What is that, Faye?"

"The receipts for every vendor at the party," I said. "I ran it, and I wrote every one down."

I stepped to the bench and put the top page in front of Muriel.

"The ring has a jeweler's visit on it twice in ten days," I said. "The first time I took it in myself. He took in the band and it fit. Two days later the Luna-elect said it was loose, and I took it again. He took it in again."

"What does that prove?" Imogen said.

"A ring that fits doesn't need to be taken in twice," I said. "It was falling off her hand a week before anyone could call me a thief."

The hall went still.

Imogen's eyes found Jarrett.

He did not move.

"It's a heavy old ring," she said. "It slipped a little. Does that make me a liar?"

"It makes you a woman who had her guards strip a stranger in front of three hundred people to avoid saying her ring fell off," Muriel said.

A gasp ran around the stone walls.

"That's not fair," Imogen said.

"No," Muriel said. "It isn't."

The three elders spoke to each other in low voices.

Then the oldest one stood.

"Faye Chandler did not steal the Luna ring," he said. "The charge is dismissed. The Luna-elect is censured for accusing a pack officer without cause, and she will say so aloud."

Imogen's hands went tight on each other.

"I was frightened," she said. "I'm sorry."

"To her," Muriel said.

Imogen turned to face me.

"I'm sorry, Faye," she said. "I should have looked first."

She said it warmly and perfectly, and she did not stop smiling.

I looked past her at the Alpha's chair.

"Jarrett," I said. "Do you believe I took it?"

"No," he said.

His voice was rough.

"You stood and watched them do it," I said.

He opened his mouth, and the oldest elder said, "The matter is closed."

Jarrett shut his mouth.

I walked out of the circle with my clipboard against my chest.

Imogen came up beside me at the door as if she wanted to walk out together.

She put her mouth next to my ear.

"You'll stand at my wedding," she said softly. "In the back row. And you'll watch him say it again."

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