Chapter 14: Owned by Whoever Claims Her

Odette's POV

The summons was nailed to my grandmother's gate by noon.

It was a sheet of heavy cream paper, with a black wax seal that I had only seen in books.

Padraig read it over my shoulder and said a word I had never heard him use.

"Moot," I read aloud. "Tomorrow at noon, in the Ironwood hall."

"By petition of the Luna of Ironwood, the outlaw Ashgrove is to be produced before the four packs."

"She isn't the Luna," Padraig said.

"She signed it that way."

"Alasdair never named her."

"She named herself, and Cold Ridge put its seal on it."

Beneath the seal was a second line in a different hand.

The Alpha of Cold Ridge presides.

I stood in the gravel with the paper shaking in my fingers.

Padraig took it away from me, gently, and folded it small.

"He's tearing the house apart looking for her," he said. "He'll find her."

"She isn't hiding," I said. "She's gone to get her father."

Something sat on the porch step when we reached the house.

It was a tin, small and round, tied with a green ribbon.

The label was in blue ink, in the neat hand I knew from a hundred birthday cards.

Odette. Morning blend.

A card was tucked under the ribbon.

Drink this, and I'll withdraw the petition. I only want you safe. Imogen.

Padraig reached for it, and I got there first.

I carried it into the kitchen, and I set it beside the first one in my grandmother's drawer.

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