Claimed by His Lycan Uncle novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Old King's Chair

The old king's pavilion stood at the north edge of the ring, as far from the noise as the stones allowed.

The four guards set the litter down at the flap and did not follow me in.

Wystan Greymere sat in a high-backed chair with a blanket over his knees.

He was thin and gray, and he had his son's eyes with all the shine gone out of them.

"Close the flap," he said.

I did.

"Sit, girl. I'm too tired to look up."

I sat on a stool across from him.

"Hadrian doesn't know you're here," he said. "He thinks I'm sleeping. I'm told it's the one useful thing I do."

"Why did you send for me?"

"First, I ought to say that I am sorry."

"For what?"

"For raising a son who would do that to you in public." He said it simply, without any pleading. "I have no right to ask you to forgive it, and I won't."

I did not know what to say, and so I said nothing.

"Second," he said, "I want you to tell me what you smelled in the trees."

I went cold.

"Why?"

"Because I was at the edge of the ring that night, and I watched you walk toward the trees."

"Then I watched my son follow."

"He followed me," I said.

"Did he?"

"I felt it. Rue went still. It was the mate pull."

"I believe you felt it. I don't doubt that for a moment." The old king leaned forward, and the blanket slid. "What did it smell of?"

I looked at my hands.

"Snow," I said. "And woodsmoke."

Wystan closed his eyes.

He sat that way so long that I thought he had fallen asleep.

"My son smells of cedar," he said at last. "And cold iron. He has since he was a boy, because the royal house was built of cedar, and the forges are on the east wall."

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