The Warlord of Wycliffe: The Dethroning of My False Mate novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Treaty Table

Alpha Dorian Stroud signs a treaty before the whole pack, and Elowen refuses to pour Roderick's wine. Roderick has her locked in the cellar for theft.

Roderick let go of my arm and told Colm to get me out of sight.

I did not go.

I walked past both of them, down the east stairs and out into the yard, barefoot on the cold stones.

Half the pack had already come out to see who was ringing the bell.

Dorian Stroud swung down from his horse.

He was tall and broad, with sandy hair cut close, a short beard and light grey eyes.

He looked at the whole crowd, then at me, and he put one hand over his chest and bowed.

"Elowen Wycliffe," he said. "I was told you were dead."

A murmur went through the yard.

Roderick came out of the lodge behind me, buttoning the last button on his shirt.

"That's my bookkeeper," he said loudly. "She keeps our accounts. You have the wrong woman, Stroud."

"Do I?"

Dorian's grey eyes went to my left shoulder, where my shirt had slipped and the bite mark showed.

Then they went back to Roderick.

"Your bookkeeper wears your mark, Alpha?"

Roderick's face went dark.

Nobody in the yard said a word.

Verity Crane stood at the front of the crowd in her grey field coat, with her arms folded.

She was tall and blonde, with her hair cropped short and a long scar down her forearm.

I had never talked to her for longer than a minute.

She was looking at the mark on my shoulder.

Then she looked at Roderick.

Her face did not move, but I saw her work it out.

"Inside," Roderick said. "We'll sign the treaty in the hall."

The great hall of Greyhollow smelled of old smoke and wet dog.

There were long tables and a raised dais, and the pack crowded in along the walls.

Roderick sat in the Alpha's chair.

Dorian took the guest seat across from him, with two of his men standing behind.

I stood at the back, because nobody had told me to sit.

Roderick cleared his throat.

"Last month at Hollow Ridge, Greyhollow won its war," he said. "I led the charge myself. Stormreach has asked for peace, and we are generous."

He lifted his right hand to sign.

The signet ring on his finger caught the light.

It was a plain gold band with a wolf's head cut into it.

I had put it on his hand myself the night we mated, and I had said, "It was my father's."

Dorian watched the ring.

"Your charge was very brave," he said. "I watched it from the east slope."

Roderick smiled.

"I'm told Greyhollow's wolves were seen from a long way off."

"They were," Dorian said. "I would have burned you to the ground, Grimshaw. I had four hundred wolves and a clear view of your camp."

The hall went still.

"Then I saw that ring on your hand," Dorian went on, "and I called my wolves back."

Roderick's smile slipped.

"The Wycliffe generals once let my father's whole pack cross their lines alive, when they could have killed us," Dorian said. "That ring is their word. No Stormreach wolf raises a blade against it."

He looked straight at me.

"I did not stop for you, Alpha. I stopped for the family on your finger."

Somebody in the crowd said, "The Wycliffe ring?"

Someone else said, "She's a Wycliffe?"

Roderick slammed the quill onto the table.

"Enough. The treaty says what it says. We sign, and we drink."

He raised his chin at me across the whole hall.

"Elowen. Pour the Alpha's wine."

The pack waited.

It was the Omega's duty in Greyhollow to serve the Alpha's table.

I had done it every night for a year, and I had never once looked up.

I walked to the head of the hall, and I picked up the wine jug.

Then I set it down.

"No," I said.

Roderick leaned forward.

"What did you say?"

"I said no." I looked at him. "I don't pour wine for a man who ties my hands and says he'll mark someone else."

Gasps went through the room.

I had not meant to say it that loud.

I was glad that I had.

Verity's arms dropped.

"Tied your hands?" she said.

Roderick stood.

"She's overwrought. She's hysterical from the war," he said, and waved his hand. "Colm."

Colm Radley stepped out from the wall.

"She froze the pack's accounts this morning," he said. "On her own. The grain order, the fuel, everything. The pack has no money."

Murmurs turned into shouting.

A woman near the front said her husband's pension had not come.

An old man cursed.

I felt every eye in the room turn on me, and it was not a good feeling.

Roderick came down off the dais, slowly, and stopped one step away.

His voice was low, so only I could hear it.

"You will unfreeze that account in front of them," he said. "Or I will tell this room you are a thief."

"The money is mine."

"Mate law says it's the pack's." He smiled, and I saw his wolf rise behind his eyes, cold and flat. "Unfreeze it, or I'll prove it."

"Prove it how?"

He turned to the hall.

"The pack's funds were stolen this morning," he said. "By my own bookkeeper. Take her to the cellar."

Two guards started toward me.

Dorian stood up so fast his chair fell over.

Roderick lifted his hand.

"This is Greyhollow law, Stroud. You signed the treaty."

Dorian looked at me, and he did not sit.

I let the guards take me.

The last thing I saw was Verity Crane, standing alone against the wall with her hand pressed over her mouth.

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