My Family Stole My Alpha, I Married Someone Stronger novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Cost of the Desert

Corwin's POV

I left my wife in the infirmary with the man the moon had picked for her, and I stood in the hall outside and did not listen.

I am not proud of how hard that was.

Perrin found me there with a paper cup of coffee and the face of a man who has been awake for twenty hours.

"The elder's asking for you," he said. "She's in the guest room off the kitchen. She wouldn't say why."

"Is she hurt?"

"She ate three eggs and told me my beard was a disgrace. I'd say she's recovering."

The old woman sat upright in a narrow bed with a quilt over her knees.

The enforcers had left a tray, and she had eaten from every dish on it.

"Shut the door, Alpha Haldane."

I shut it.

"The whole lodge heard the Luna shout about your letter," she said. "You still carry it."

"I do," I said.

"Then give it to your wife before the moon, not after."

"That's why you called me in?"

"No." She patted the bed. "Sit. Your wife will have to prove her blood tonight, and she doesn't know how. I'm going to tell you, because I would like one person in this lodge to know the law who isn't trying to use it."

I sat.

"A silver claim isn't voted on," she said. "It's tried. At moonrise, in the circle, the claimant stands against whoever holds the bond that blocks her."

"Beatrix."

"Beatrix. The council gave her the bite, so the council gave her the block. Tilda has to shift in front of the whole pack and put that bond down."

"Put it down how?"

"However the moon allows. It's a trial, boy, not a ceremony."

I turned my hands over on my knees.

"And the Release?"

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