The Warlord of Wycliffe: The Dethroning of My False Mate novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Lamp Stays Lit

I went down to the ledger cellar at midnight with a lamp.

Two guards stood at the door.

I told them to wait at the top of the stairs, and they went.

Roderick sat on the stone bench where he had locked me up two days ago.

He had no circlet and no sword, and his shirt was stained with the oak dust of the Stone.

He did not stand when I came in.

He could not have.

"You brought a light," he said.

"I did."

"Put it out."

"No."

His wolf pressed against his face, and I watched him fight it.

I set the lamp on the shelf between us and sat on a crate across the room.

"Colm told me to ask who signed for the gate," I said. "On the night my family died."

"Ask Colm."

"I'm asking you."

"Ask the ledger." His voice was flat. "I'll answer to the council. Not to you, not tonight."

"Why not tonight?"

"Because you would look at me like that," he said. "And I would go down."

I said nothing.

He looked at his own hands.

"Do you want to know when it started?"

"I know when it started. You told me. You said I was quiet and kind and you had never wanted anything so much."

"That was true." He gave a short laugh. "I came to your door the first night with the bite already in my mouth. And I could feel you, under the quiet. Something I'd never smelled in a wolf. Something that should have been standing over me."

"You knew what I was."

"My wolf knew. I didn't. I thought I had found a mate."

"You did."

"I found a wall I could not stand in front of." He looked up. "You never once showed me. A year, Elowen. You wrote me letters about grain prices. You sent money and never asked for a thing. I begged you in my head, every day on that border, to turn around and be what you really were, so I'd know if I could survive it."

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