Chapter 19: Bread at the Door

I did not sleep.

I lay in the dark with Lucan's arm across me and listened to the keep settle, the pipes and the stairs and the wind in the east chimney.

Two Bloodwood wolves sat on the cellar stair.

The grey-cloaked man was on the outer wall.

Lucan had put four of his own outside the children's room, and I had looked in on them three times.

Every time, six shapes lay curled in the dark in a heap, as they always did, with the Healer snoring in the chair.

The fourth time I did not get up.

I told myself that was good sense.

I was nearly asleep when a small hand shook my shoulder.

"Mama," Bram said.

His eyes were glowing amber in the dark, and his face was white.

"What is it?"

"There was bread," he said. "The man at the door gave my guards bread. I smelled it. I didn't eat any."

I was out of bed before he finished.

"Where are your sisters?"

"The twins are here." His voice cracked. "The smallest isn't. And the quiet one."

I ran.

The corridor outside the children's room was wrong before I reached it.

Two of Lucan's wolves lay slumped against the wall with their chins on their chests, breathing slowly.

The door stood open.

Four children sat up in the beds, blinking, and the Healer was asleep in her chair with her head back and her mouth open.

Two beds were empty.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Rejected for Being Barren, Now the Alphas Kneel from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.