The Alpha's Unwanted Luna novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Second Page

The northern Alpha laughed.

"A scrap of paper from a dead man's pocket," he said. "Elder, with respect, we are voting."

"With respect," said Gwendolen Haskett, "you will sit down, or I will tell this room what your father did at the Crossing."

The northern Alpha sat down.

I had never seen anyone obey so fast.

She crossed the dais with her cane tapping.

She set the yellow page in front of the east-range Alpha, the one Alpha in the circle nobody had ever accused of lying.

"Break the seal," Gwendolen said. "Read it loud."

The wax cracked.

The hall was so silent that I heard Linus swallow beside me.

The east-range woman put on her glasses and unfolded the page.

She read slowly.

"The ridge of Blackmoor belongs to the Keeper line, the daughters who carved the nine stones and bled them into the ground."

"An Alpha rules the ridge in trust for a Keeper daughter, or as her husband, and by no other right."

"When the daughter is found, the trust passes to her."

"If she turns from her husband by her own hand and name, his rule ends in that hour."

"The ridge is hers to keep or to give."

"Witnessed by the Alpha of Garland, by the Alpha of Blackmoor, and by the Elder of the ridge."

She looked up over the rims of her glasses.

"There is a note in the margin, in a different hand."

"'The daughter is Ismay, born to the last Keeper, who is dead. Bring her home.'"

Nobody breathed.

I had stopped feeling my feet.

"I don't understand," I said, and my voice came out thin. "My mother was a Garland. She kept bees."

"Your mother was a Keeper," Gwendolen said. "The last of them."

"She walked off this ridge at nineteen rather than be married to a man she didn't choose."

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