Sacrificed Riley to the King novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Tribute Moon
On the pack lawn, with nobody willing to go, Wynn volunteers to be the King's offering for her brother's sake, and at the King's gate he takes one look at her and orders her put back.
Our Alpha read the King's summons to two hundred wolves on the pack house lawn, and nobody moved.
The paper said the Lycan King called for one she-wolf, given freely, to be at his gate before midnight.
Given freely meant someone had to step out of the crowd and say yes.
I stood near the back with my arms folded, and Delphine stood beside me with her hand through my elbow.
"Don't look at him," she whispered. "He picks whoever is looking."
She was the Alpha's daughter, and she had saved me a seat at every pack supper since we were nine.
The Alpha folded the paper and let the quiet run.
"No one?" he said, and he sounded tired. "I won't order anyone. I'd rather it were a gift."
He looked down the lawn until he found me.
"Whoever goes, the pack will pay for the clinic for good, Miss MacBain. I'll sign it tonight."
My little brother Eli was eleven, and his lungs closed up three nights out of seven.
The clinic account was the only reason he was still breathing at night.
Delphine's hand tightened on my arm.
"He won't do it," she said into my ear. "He's bluffing."
He was not bluffing, and she knew it, and she kept holding on.
I had watched this lawn once before, when I was thirteen.
Alpha Theron Stroud had called my mother's name from this exact spot, and she had walked to the gate with a small bag and a note she left for me in my coat.
Keep the light on.
I had kept the light on for eleven years.
I took my arm out of Delphine's hand.
"I'll go," I said.
My voice carried farther than I meant it to.
Two hundred heads turned.
Garrick Dunn came down the line from the pack house steps, still in the dark jacket he wore as Beta.
He was a big man with a gentle face, and he stopped in front of me and kept his voice low, though everyone could hear him.
"Miss MacBain, are you certain you want to be the offering to the Lycan King?"
"Yes."
"None of the she-wolves we sent before has ever been heard from again," he said. "Do you understand what that means?"
"It means my mother was the first," I said. "I understand it better than anyone here."
Garrick closed his eyes for a moment.
Theron cleared his throat.
"Then it is given freely," he said, and he wrote something on the summons with a pen from his pocket.
That was all it took, and the pack began to breathe again.
Delphine caught my sleeve before I reached the steps.
She was crying a little, and she did not let go until she had pulled my braid straight over my shoulder.
"I'm so proud of you," she said. "Hold still."
She took a small silver wolf from her pocket and pinned it to my collar.
"So the King sees you're one of ours. Keep it on, Wynn. I'll want it back."
"Is it safe up there?" I asked.
"Dad says they live like queens," she said. "He'd never send you if it wasn't safe."
She kissed my cheek.
I let her.
Garrick drove.
He had a truck that smelled of woodsmoke and old coffee, and for the first hour neither of us said a word.
We stopped at the clinic on the way out of town, because I asked.
Eli was asleep with his mouth open and his inhaler held against his chest.
I put my mother's note in his hand and closed his fingers over it.
"Tell him I'm taking a trip," I said to the night nurse. "Tell him to leave the porch light on."
She nodded, and I could not tell if she understood.
The road north climbed for three hours.
Somewhere after the last gas station, Garrick spoke.
"The Alpha asked me twice this week whether you wore a brooch when you were chosen."
I turned my head.
"Chosen?" I said. "Nobody chose me. I stepped out."
"I know," Garrick said. "I'm only telling you what he asked."
I looked down at the silver wolf on my collar.
I thought about taking it off.
Then I thought about Delphine's hand on my braid, and I left it where it was.
The gate came out of the black pines at a quarter to midnight.
It was iron, twice the height of the truck, with two guards on either side and a lantern hung from a spike.
Garrick stopped the engine and did not look at me.
"I've driven eleven of them to this gate," he said. "I'm sorry."
I got out.
The cold went straight through my jacket.
The guards stepped aside, and the gate opened without a sound.
A man stood in the lantern light on the other side, alone, tall and dark-haired, with a long pale scar down the back of his left forearm.
He had come out to the gate himself.
The Lycan King looked at me, and his amber eyes dropped to the brooch and came back up to my face.
He went still.
Then he spoke to the guards without looking away from me.
"Put her back."
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