Chapter 19: My Father's Order

Alaric's POV

My father asked for me alone, and Astrid let me go.

She did not like it.

She stood at the top of the cellar stairs with her arms crossed and Beryl beside her.

"I'll hear it if you shout," she said.

The old king sat on a stool in the wine cellar with his hands bound in front of him.

Two of Beryl's guards had put him there.

He looked up when I came down and smiled.

It was the smile he had used when I was six and had done my lessons well.

"Sit," he said.

"I'll stand."

"You always did. You were a proud little thing. You wouldn't sit for a story until I'd promised the right ending."

"What do you want?"

"I want my kingdom to go on," he said. "You're not stupid, Alaric. You know what that girl is."

"A woman in your bed with a white wolf in her can pull the throne out from under you by saying who she is."

"She hasn't said it."

"She will. Everyone does."

"She had a dozen chances," I said. "She named herself to the Council and asked for nothing."

"Then she's cleverer than I thought."

"She's honest."

He laughed, and it turned into a cough.

"Look at what she has done to you," he said. "You came into my house with her scent all over you."

"She has no hold on me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Girl He Sold Returned as the King's Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.