Hunted by the Alpha novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Council Table

Sherman Draycott got out of the sedan.

He wore a gray wool suit and a silver signet ring, and he buttoned his coat before he looked at me.

"Miss Mattila," he said. "Forgive the hour."

I had never told him my name.

"She is under my hand," Corwin said.

"So I've been told by three wolves and a text message." Sherman smiled. "A thief in your hand, Corwin. Your father would have had her at the table before she dried her hair."

"My father isn't alpha."

"No. Your father is dead."

He let the words sit, and I felt Corwin's whole body stiffen beside me.

I did not look at him. I looked at Sherman, and I thought, you knew exactly where to aim.

"The council meets at nine," Sherman said pleasantly. "I trust the thief will attend. In person."

"She will," said Corwin.

"And the niece?"

My stomach dropped.

"I heard there was a niece," Sherman said, and his eyes moved to the dark windows of our building. "Children are welcome at the lodge. We have not had one in a long time."

"She stays with her nurse," Corwin said. "She's ill."

He tapped the roof of his car twice, and the window slid up, and the sedan rolled away.

Corwin's jaw worked, his teeth clamped tight.

"He knows something," I said.

"He knows enough to ask. He doesn't know she's mine."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because if he did," Corwin said, "she'd already be in his car."

By nine that morning, Hettie was sitting on a quilt in a pine-paneled bedroom on the second floor of the Draycott lodge.

Joss sat beside her, doing an extremely bad impression of a dragon.

Hettie had found a box of crayons in the dresser, and she was drawing with her tongue stuck out.

"Who lives here?" she asked.

"Friends of Mama's," Joss said.

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