He Wanted Me as His Mistress, So I Divorced Him for a Lycan Prince novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Claim

Lucan says the claim is hers to refuse and she sets one rule; Dalton throws her out and his guards block the gate with her ledgers.

The whole hall heard him say it.

I did not answer right away, because I could not think of a single thing to say to a prince who had spoken to me only about borders.

"Claim me?" I said.

"Yes."

"Like a stray?"

His jaw moved.

"A claim is an offer," Lucan said. "In my kingdom it is the only thing a Lycan may ask of a free woman. She can say no, and I bow, and I go home."

"And if I say nothing?"

"Then I wait."

"You've been good at that," I said.

A few wolves at the front tables laughed, and then looked embarrassed.

Dalton came down off the dais with Savannah still holding his sleeve.

"Eloise is my wife," he said.

"She was," Lucan said, without turning his head. "Your pack's own book says so."

"This is a pack matter. You're a guest."

"Then I'll behave like one."

He stepped back half a pace and folded his hands behind him.

He stayed close enough that I could feel the warmth of him through my sleeve.

I looked at the two hundred faces and at my mother-in-law, who was gripping the edge of her table.

I had expected shouting.

What I got was the sound of a hall full of people deciding which of us to side with.

"I'm not saying yes tonight," I told Lucan.

"I didn't ask for yes tonight."

"If I ever say it, you don't touch my neck until I tell you to."

I had no reason for that rule.

It had come out of my mouth before I knew I meant it.

Something crossed his face that I could not read, and then it was gone.

"Agreed," he said.

"Agreed to what?" Dalton said.

"That is between her and me."

Dalton's face went dark red.

"You think you can walk out of my hall with my wife."

"She is not your wife," Lucan said. "I think she can walk out of your hall on her own."

I decided that I could.

I turned to the clerk's table.

"Hattie, I'm going to need my bag."

"Both of them are packed," Hattie said. "I did it two weeks ago when I saw the cardigan girl's trunk go up the east stairs."

I stared at her.

"Two weeks ago?"

"I'm a clerk," she said. "I read the room assignments."

Odessa rose from her chair at last.

"Eloise, dear, be sensible," she said. "You are upset. Come and sit with me, and we will talk about this like a family."

She reached for my arm, and I stepped back.

Her hand stopped in the air a little too fast.

"There's nothing to talk about," I said. "I signed it."

"Pen on paper," my mother-in-law said gently. "Words you can take back in the morning."

"Not in this charter."

"You wrote that charter," Dalton said, and pushed past her. "Fine. Then get out. Tonight."

The hall went silent again.

"You think you're so clever," he said. "You've lived in my house for six years. Everything in it is the pack's. The furniture, the cars, the accounts."

"I know what's in the house, Dalton. I keep the accounts."

"Then you know none of it leaves with you."

"I'll take my clothes and my mother's lamp."

"Take what you came with," he said. "You came with nothing."

I had come with my mother's lamp and one suitcase, a month after my father's funeral.

I did not say that.

I took my coat off the back of the chair and put it on.

Savannah finally let go of his sleeve.

"Dalton," she said, small and shaky. "Maybe this is too much."

"Stay out of it," he said, not looking at her.

It was the first time I had heard him speak to her that way.

I filed it away, the way I filed everything.

Hattie hoisted one bag and took my other arm.

Lucan did not offer to carry anything, and I liked him better for it.

We walked down the length of the hall between the tables.

Two hundred wolves watched me go, and not one of them said my name.

Outside, the autumn night was cold enough to sting my teeth.

The gate to the pack's road stood at the end of the lawn, under a lamp.

I had signed off on that lamp last spring.

Four of Dalton's guards stood under it with their arms folded.

"Luna," the tallest said, and then corrected himself. "Ma'am. You can leave."

"Thank you."

"The bags can't."

"They're my clothes."

"Alpha's orders," he said. "Anything that's heavy enough to be a ledger stays."

I looked at the bag on Hattie's shoulder.

Underneath the clothes, sitting flat against the lining, were the pack's true books.

The ones I had kept for six years.

The ones nobody else had ever read.

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