This Time, I Accept Your Brother's Claim novel · Chapter 18 of 32
Chapter 18: The Bargain
"Tell me," I said.
Piers leaned on the cane.
"The morning after you died, she came down the front stairs with a bag packed. The Alpha who led the rising was waiting in the hall."
"I asked her why."
He looked at the rosemary.
"She said she'd backed the wrong wolf twice now. She was done."
"Twice?"
"That's what I asked."
His mouth went thin.
"She said, 'I gave your father his wine at the Harvest Moon, Piers. Wolfsbane. I made you King a year early, and look what you did with it.'"
The bees went on working in the thyme.
"She laughed," he said. "Then she walked out with him."
"And you told no one."
"I had no Voice and a revolt in the hall. I had four months to live. Who was I going to tell?"
"You could have told the truth for once. Even then."
He didn't answer that.
"She's sending bitters," I said. "I know."
He looked up sharply.
"You know?"
"Since before the Claiming. Auden tests them every Sunday. They're clean."
"They'll stay clean. She's not stupid." He shifted his weight off the bad knee. "I know where she gets the wolfsbane. I know who in the kitchen takes her money."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of This Time, I Accept Your Brother's Claim are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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