Fated to My Vampire Lord novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Hearing

The Council met in a round stone hall with no windows and three hundred chairs.

Every chair was full.

Tiernan and I sat at a long table in the center, with the Council elders in a ring above us and the cameras on the gallery rail.

Ottoline sat in the elder's row, her hands folded on her stick.

She did not look at me.

Otis sat three rows behind us with his glasses pushed up and both thumbs pressed white against his knees.

On the other side of the hall, at a table that mirrored ours, sat my father.

He had worn his Alpha's grey coat, and he had brought nine wolves.

Keeley sat beside him, pale in a pale dress, holding his sleeve.

She looked across at me and mouthed, I'm sorry.

I looked away.

The Council chair stood in her red gown at the head of the ring.

"The petition of Alpha Bellegarde," she said. "Speak."

Dad rose.

"A wolf who is Struck is surrendered," he said, in the voice he used on the Ridge. "A surrendered wolf is a servant. A servant cannot be courted by a Court heir, because a servant has no standing to be courted. Clause nine is void for her."

A few of the elders nodded.

"Further," Dad said, "I ask the Council to look at what this is. A wolf Struck at sunset is a Crowhurst's betrothed by moonrise. The pairing is a fraud, made to cheat the Accord, and I ask that the Strike be carried out as the law requires."

He sat down.

Nobody moved.

I stood.

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