The Alpha King's Heart novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Reading
The Alpha King walks the rows of humans, stops at Macy, and claims her as his in front of the whole square; she says no to his face, and he turns on Strake and says he counted twenty-nine stripes.
At dawn every human in the district over eighteen stood in rows in the town square, shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the ground.
The same stage where they had flogged me was still stained brown at the edges.
I stood in the third row with Emmett's arm pressed against mine so I would not fall.
My back had stuck to my shirt in the night, and I had peeled it off in the dark without a sound.
"Just stay quiet," Emmett whispered. "They check your face and they go. It's a census."
"It's not a census," I said. "Nobody calls the Alpha King for a census."
"Then what is it?"
I did not know.
Strake stood at the foot of the stage in a fresh gray suit, smiling around at us.
He had his hand on the shoulder of a pale boy in the front row, a mated human with a mark, who was trembling.
The air changed first.
Every wolf in the square went still, and then every wolf bowed.
Even the ones in black vests.
A tall man walked out from behind the stage with no guards and no crown.
He was in a plain black shirt and black pants, and his hair was black too.
A scar cut through his left eyebrow.
I had never seen him, and I knew who he was before anyone said it.
The Alpha King.
I hated him on sight, for the stage and the whip and the five years of rules that came with his name.
He started down the first row.
He did not look at faces the way Strake did.
He stopped in front of each person and breathed in.
The humans flinched.
A woman near the front burst into tears when he stood in front of her, and he said, "You can go home," and her whole family sobbed with relief.
He moved down the second row.
A cold wind pushed through the square.
Then the smell reached me.
Fresh-cut grass.
I had breathed it for two nights under a borrowed coat, and my whole body knew it before my head did.
My wrists went hot.
The heat spread up my arms and into my chest and dropped low in my stomach, and my knees started to give.
"Macy?" Emmett hissed. "You're gray. Are you going to be sick?"
"I'm fine."
I was not fine.
The King stopped in front of me.
He was taller than I had thought, and up close his eyes were a clear light gray.
They looked at my face, at the cut on my cheek, and then at the stiff way I held my shoulders.
Something moved in his jaw.
I hated that my own pulse was going crazy for the man who owned every wolf who ever hurt me.
"Your name," he said.
His voice was lower than I expected, and quiet.
"Macy Davenport."
I did not bow my head.
Somebody behind me gasped at that.
He did not seem to notice, because he had reached for my hand.
His fingers closed around mine, and the heat in my wrists went through my whole body at once.
I felt it in my teeth.
I tried to pull away, and I could not.
He looked down at our joined hands and said nothing for a moment.
"Mine," he said, so low that only I could hear it.
Then he said it again, louder, for the square.
"This one is mine."
A hiss of whispers ran through the crowd.
The wolves lifted their heads.
Strake's hand left the pale boy's shoulder.
Every human in the square stared at me, and not one of them looked sorry anymore.
They looked relieved that it was me.
I thought of Selma's green blouse.
I thought of the back of my own shirt, glued to my skin.
I yanked my hand out of his.
It cost me, because every nerve in my arm screamed.
"No," I said.
The word rang off the stage.
Emmett made a small choking sound beside me.
"Say that again," the King said.
His face had not changed at all.
"No," I said. "I'm not yours. I'm not anyone's."
"You can't refuse him, girl," Strake called, delighted. "It's a bond. Look at your own hands."
I looked.
My fingers were still reaching toward the King, trembling in the air between us.
I dragged them back against my chest.
"My hands aren't me," I said.
Strake laughed out loud, and a few of the wolves joined him.
The King turned his head, slowly, and the laughing stopped.
He looked at Strake for a long moment.
"Alpha Strake," he said. "How many lashes does the law allow in this sector?"
Strake's smile slipped a little.
"Fifteen, my King."
"Fifteen."
The King nodded and glanced up at the stage.
"I was standing in the doorway of the nurse's house," he said, "when they carried her in. I counted the stripes on her back."
He turned his gray eyes on Strake.
"There are twenty-nine."
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