The Wrong Groom on My Wedding Night novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Crispin's POV

Crispin's POV

On the seventh night the old record-keeper sent for me, and I knew what she would say before I ducked under her door.

She sat in her chair by the fire with the ledger shut on her knee.

She had heard me coming down the path, because she had spent forty years listening to what other people didn't say.

"Sit, warden," she said. "Or should I say Alpha?"

"Warden's fine."

"The council spoke tonight in the hall. If the stone names you tomorrow, the seat of Redfern is yours by birth. You are the first-born, and your father's own hand has just proven it for them."

"I know."

"The pack will follow you. Half of them already do."

"They followed me because I put my hand on a boy and his lips turned pink," I said. "That isn't the same as being asked."

She looked at me for a long time.

"You don't want it."

"I want my own bed at the Ridge," I said. "I want a clean shirt on it on Sundays."

"That's a small thing to want."

"It's the only thing I've ever had."

"Crispin." She leaned toward me. "Redfern is starving for a good man. It has been starving for thirty years."

"Then it can pick one."

"Because you're afraid?"

I thought about that honestly, because she had earned an honest answer.

"Because the seat is what he did all this for," I said. "He cut a baby out of a room and burned a bride's life to the ground to keep it. I will not sit in the chair that cost her that."

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