He Traded His Pregnant Luna to the Lycan King novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Healer's Debt

They brought Odette into the King's hall at noon the next day.

She walked between two wardens with her wrists in iron and her honey hair combed smooth.

Someone had let her wash.

Someone had let her put on a plain grey dress, and she looked fragile and tired and very young.

I sat at Ronan's right hand, on a chair he had not let me refuse, with Elias asleep against my shoulder.

The hall was full.

Half the Alphas of Moon Court had stayed on at Highmoor, and the rest of the room belonged to Stonewater.

The omegas stood along the back wall, the cook in front of them, with her arms crossed over her copper-pot chest.

Odette lifted her eyes to mine, and her mouth began to tremble.

"Wynne," she said. "Oh, Wynne. Thank God."

I said nothing.

"I never meant any of it. You must know that. I was frightened. Torin was falling apart, the whole pack was turning on me, and I didn't know where else to run."

Her voice broke beautifully.

A tear rolled down her cheek and she didn't wipe it.

"I only wanted to be safe. I did what I did to survive. I'm so sorry."

Nobody moved.

The cook made a short, disgusted noise.

Odette heard it, and her eyes flicked to the back wall.

She changed.

I watched it happen.

The soft shoulders straightened, and the tears stopped.

"Fine," she said. "You want the truth?"

"I want it," said Ronan.

"I kept it quiet for four years. All right. I did. I watched him tire himself to a husk, and I watched her get thinner, and I thought, if I tell them, he loses the seat and I lose him."

She looked around the hall, daring someone to flinch.

"And what would you have done? Torin was the best Alpha that valley ever had, and he was strong because of what she gave him. Was I supposed to take that from him?"

"You took it from her," I said.

"You were an omega's daughter with a lucky bond! You were nobody!"

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