Forced To Bear The Alpha's Son novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Empty Graves

House Lark's gate was iron, twice the height of a man, with a rose worked into every bar.

I had gone out through a small door behind it nine nights before the forest, on my belly, in the dark.

Now I walked up to it at noon with the Alpha of Greywater beside me and a hundred wolves at my back.

The lords of the human courts sat under a canopy in front of the gate.

There were three of them, in furred robes, with a clerk and an inkwell beside them.

The Madam sat on a chair to their left in grey silk.

Her lawyer stood behind her.

The wind carried lilac.

I felt my stomach turn over.

Matvei's hand rested against the small of my back. He was still pale, and he stood straighter than he had any right to.

"Say when," he said quietly.

"Not yet."

The eldest lord struck a gavel on the arm of his chair.

"We are met under the Accord to hear the claim of Madam Odile Crane, of House Lark, to a breeder named Sorrel, hers by birth and brand, who fled her care. Madam?"

The Madam rose.

She was very good.

She spoke of twenty-six years of care and a gentle household.

She spoke of her grief when a favorite girl ran in the night.

She spoke of her fear that I had been harmed.

She wept a little.

"I do not ask for a great deal," she finished. "Only that my girl be returned, and that the Alpha be reminded that a wolf cannot buy what the law has already sold."

The lords nodded.

The eldest turned to us.

"Alpha Dragunov. Your answer."

"She is claimed," Matvei said. "She carries my child, sealed by my pack's midwife. Under the Accord she leaves this House, and her kin leave with her."

"The Madam disputes the child."

"The Madam may dispute the sun."

A ripple went through the wolves behind me.

"Be careful, Alpha," the eldest said.

"I will let the claimed mother speak."

Every eye turned to me.

I stepped out of his hand.

My knees were water, and my voice, when it came, was steady, because I had spent two days practicing it in the dark.

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