The Alpha King and His Virgin Bride novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Ragna's Vial

Ragna laughed.

It was a pretty laugh, and it came half a second too late.

"She's hysterical," she said to the Alphas. "Humans can't hold mead."

Tove didn't argue.

She walked straight across the floor and snatched the little silver clutch out of Ragna's hand.

Ragna grabbed for it.

Tove turned her shoulder, unsnapped it and dumped it out on the council table in front of the Duluth Alpha.

A lipstick.

A phone.

A small brown glass vial with a dropper cap, half empty.

The Duluth Alpha picked it up between two fingers and unscrewed it.

She sniffed once and jerked her head back.

"Wolfsbane," she said. "Enough to drop a horse."

The hall made a sound I'd never heard from a crowd.

It was two hundred wolves growling under their breath at once.

Vidar stood up from beside me.

I caught his wrist before he could go anywhere.

My hand was shaking, but he stopped.

"Tove," I said, through lips like rubber. "My bag. My room."

She ran.

Ragna had backed up against the hearth.

Her red mouth was still smiling, but her eyes went to one place in the room, over and over.

To Torvald.

"He told me to," she said.

Nobody moved.

"He said a few drops would only make her sick," Ragna said, faster.

"That she'd fall down in front of the Alphas and they'd see how weak she was."

"He gave it to me. He said I'd be Queen."

Torvald looked at her across the hall.

He looked at her.

"My wife's daughter," he said to the Alphas. "Not mine. I took her in when her mother died, out of pity."

Ragna's face went white under the lipstick.

"Torvald."

"She's wanted the King since she was old enough to want anything," he said.

"She's wanted the crown longer. I'm ashamed I fed her at my table."

"You gave me the bottle," Ragna said. "In your study. Yesterday."

"Did anyone see me?"

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

"Then she's lying," Torvald said, "as her mother lied."

The Thunder Bay Alpha had gone very quiet in his camel coat.

Tove came back with my monitor bag.

I tore my uniform shirt open and slapped the leads on myself on the floor, because nobody else in that room knew where they went.

Two hundred wolves watched a strip of paper come out of the monitor.

Extra beats.

Skips.

Then, after a long minute, a rhythm I could live with.

I sat on the cold stone with my back against Vidar's legs and read my own heart.

"I'll live," I said. "Call your vote."

The Duluth Alpha looked at me with something new in her face.

"She diagnosed her own poisoning," she said to the table, "with her fingers down her throat. Yes."

It went down the table.

Yes.

Yes.

Thunder Bay looked at Torvald, then at the brown vial.

"Yes," he said.

The Soo said yes with his hat in his hands.

The Marquette Alpha said no, and stroked his beard, and didn't look at anyone.

Ten to one.

Vidar spoke for the first time since he'd knelt beside me.

"Ragna Hovland is off Greywater land by dawn," he said.

"The council will judge her. Nobody feeds her, shelters her or speaks for her until then."

Then he looked at his uncle.

"There are two cars at my gate," he said. "Send them home."

Torvald inclined his head and went out.

I didn't watch him go.

I was watching Ragna, who was watching the door shut behind him.

At midnight my heart had been steady for three hours.

I'd showered twice and brushed my teeth until my gums bled, and I could feel my mouth again.

I was in one of Vidar's flannel shirts and nothing else, sitting on his bed with the monitor still clipped to me.

He was pacing.

Barefoot, in jeans, his shirt off, like a caged thing.

"I put you in that hall," he said. "I let her pour it."

"I drank it."

"You could have died on my floor."

"I didn't." I pulled the leads off one at a time and dropped them over the side of the bed.

"I'm done being a patient tonight, Vidar."

He stopped.

His eyes went gold at the edges.

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