He Wanted Me as His Mistress, So I Divorced Him for a Lycan Prince novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gate

A guard bruises her arm, Lucan's men stand them down and he binds her wrist; Savannah offers a cottage key with tears.

"Open it," the tall guard said.

Hattie held the bag tighter.

"It's clothes," she said.

"Then you won't mind."

He reached for the strap.

I stepped between them, and a second guard took my arm above the elbow.

His grip was meant to move me out of the way.

It closed hard enough that I felt the bone.

"Let go," I said.

"Ma'am, step aside."

"Let go of my arm."

He did not.

I had signed this man's wages for four years.

I knew his daughter's name, and I knew he was behind on his rent because of a bad winter.

"Take your hand off her," Lucan said behind me.

He did not shout.

Somewhere out in the dark, four men in long grey coats stepped into the lamplight.

I had seen them every autumn, standing at the edges of the treaty hall.

They were Lycans, and they were bigger than any wolf Ember Ridge had.

The guard let go of my arm and took a step back.

"Highness," the tall one said. "This is a pack matter."

"The Luna has asked for my escort."

"She hasn't."

I looked at Lucan.

He looked back, and he did not tell me what to say.

The choice sat in the air between us, and I knew he would not take it from me.

"I'm asking," I said.

"Then it's done," Lucan said. "Under the treaty her person and her bags are under Blackmoor's protection until she reaches a safe door. You'll find that paragraph on page nine. Your Luna wrote it."

The tall guard's mouth worked.

"Alpha's orders," he said again, but weaker.

"Your Alpha's orders end at your gate."

The guard stepped aside.

Hattie let out a laugh that came out as a squeak.

I started walking before anyone could change their mind.

The road outside the gate was gravel and dark.

My arm was already stiffening.

I pushed up my sleeve under the lamp and looked at it.

Four dark marks, one for each finger.

"Show me," Lucan said.

"It's nothing."

"Eloise."

It was the first time he had said my name without a title.

I gave him the arm.

He turned it to the light.

His hands were warm and dry, and the scar on his right palm was long and thin and old.

He touched the bruise with the lightest pressure I had ever felt, one finger after another.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Good. Nothing is broken."

He took a strip of cloth from inside his coat and wound it around my wrist and forearm.

I told myself it was for the swelling.

I told myself I was not thinking about his thumb where it rested against the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was beating very fast.

He looked down at it.

Then he looked at me.

"I can hear that," he said quietly.

"It's cold out."

"Is it."

"Lucan."

"Yes?"

"Finish the knot."

He did, and he did not smile, but something in his face eased.

I took my arm back.

My skin kept the shape of his hand for a long time.

"Ma'am?"

Hattie was pointing up the road with her chin.

A pale figure was hurrying down the gravel in a yellow cardigan, holding her skirts out of the dust.

Savannah.

She was out of breath when she reached us.

"Please," she said. "I only have a minute."

"If this is Dalton's idea," Hattie said.

"It's not."

Savannah looked at the bandage on my arm and her eyes filled up.

"He did that?"

"A guard did."

"I'm so sorry."

She pulled a small brass key out of her sleeve.

"The old gatekeeper's cottage, by the lower fence," she said. "It's empty. It has a stove, and it's off the pack road, so nobody can say you're still in the house."

I looked at the key.

"Why?"

"Because he told me you were cold," Savannah said. "That you never needed him. That you'd be glad to be rid of the whole thing."

Her voice shook.

"He didn't tell me what you did for this place. Hattie told me tonight. I've been in the books room, Luna. I saw the ledgers. You hold this whole pack up with your hands."

"Don't call me Luna."

"No," she said. "I suppose I'm not supposed to."

She pushed the key into my palm.

Lucan watched her, and said nothing at all.

I should have asked her what she wanted for it.

I was tired, and my arm hurt, and the night was cold.

"Thank you," I said, and closed my hand around it.

Savannah smiled, wet-eyed and relieved.

Then she turned and ran back up the road toward the lights of the hall.

Hattie held up the lantern.

"Well," she said. "At least the heating works."

Lucan said, very softly, "Eloise."

"What?"

He was looking not at me but at the road behind Savannah, where the guards were gathering under the lamp.

"Your mother-in-law has just come out of the hall."

I turned.

Odessa stood alone at the top of the lawn, a small grey figure in her pearls.

She was not looking at me.

She was looking at the prince's hand, which still rested a few inches from my neck.

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