My Alpha Parents Gave My Tuition Away, So the Royal Command Took Me novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Linnea's POV

Linnea's POV

By two in the morning my father was in a Keep cell with nine of his men, and the courtyard smelled of blood and scorched steel.

The gray book from my father's truck lay on the guardroom table, and I had read its first page twice.

The Brask Circle: On Drawing One Child Into Another.

It was written in my grandfather's hand, and the child it described was me.

Teague had sealed it in an evidence bag and sat on the table beside it.

"The Court gets it at dawn," he said. "Not before."

I did not argue, because I could not stand to look at it again.

Sabine was asleep on a cot in the guardroom, under Teague's coat.

Hollis had told the healer he was fine and walked out of the infirmary with a gash down his ribs.

I found him in the motor pool, sitting on the tailgate of a Command truck with his shirt in his hand.

"You should be in bed," I said.

"I should be a lot of things."

I took a rag from the bench and wet it at the tap.

He sat still while I cleaned the gash.

It was long and ugly and it had stopped bleeding.

His stomach pulled tight under my knuckles.

"You shifted," I said. "You told me once you'd never turn your wolf on a man you could stop with your hands."

"I did say that."

"What changed?"

"A man had his hand on you."

He said it flat, and his eyes were on the floor.

My chest hurt.

"When this is over," he said. "When the Court is done, and your family can't touch you, you won't need the Command. You'll go to your university and you'll have a whole life that isn't mine."

"Is that what you think?"

"It's what I've planned for." His mouth twisted. "I'd rather plan for it than be surprised."

I dropped the rag on the bench.

I stepped between his knees, took his face in my greasy hands and made him look at me.

"Commander."

"Brask."

"A handler does not touch his recruit," I said. "Not for training, not for comfort, not once."

His throat moved.

"Your hands are on my back," I said, "and your recruit is standing between your knees."

"Linnea."

"You said it was a rule you'd never break."

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