Sacrificed Riley to the King novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The King Takes the Boy

Torin drives Wynn home on thirty-day terms and, in front of the whole pack, takes Eli out of the Alpha's hands, and then says her mother's name is first on his list.

The door opened on the first try, because I was the only one with a key.

Torin Valcour was standing in the corridor with his back to the opposite wall and his arms folded.

"Eli's gone from the clinic," I said. "My Alpha took him. I need to go back."

"I know," he said. "Garrick called the gate."

"Then you know I'm not asking."

"I know that too." He pushed off the wall. "I'll drive you."

I had expected an argument.

I had expected a speech about his house and his rules and the price of coming in his door.

What I got was a man holding out a heavy coat that smelled of cedar.

"Put it on," he said. "It's three hours in the dark, and you're still cold."

We left the Keep at three in the morning with two Crown guards in a second truck behind us.

He drove with both hands on the wheel and did not look at me.

"Before we get there," he said, "I'm going to say a few things, and you can tell me no to any of them."

"Say them."

"You stay under my roof thirty days. Your own rooms. Your own key."

"Why thirty?"

"Because that's how long it takes the pack to stop looking for you," he said. "And because in thirty days I can answer what you asked me at the door."

"What I asked?"

"Where they are."

I turned my whole body toward him in the seat.

"You know where they are."

"Thirty days," he said. "I won't touch you unless you say so. Not to help you out of a truck, not to catch you on a stair."

"That's a strange thing to promise."

"It's the only promise I'm sure I can keep."

I looked at the scar on his forearm, white against his skin where it showed under the cuff.

"And I get one back," I said. "You don't lie to me. Ever."

His mouth moved a fraction.

"I may refuse to answer," he said. "I won't lie."

"That'll do."

We came into Pinebrook at the first gray of the light, and the whole pack was already on the lawn.

Somebody had rung the old bell on the pack house steps.

Theron Stroud stood at the top of the steps in his wool coat with Delphine beside him.

And between them, wrapped in a quilt, small and gray in the face, was Eli.

I was out of the truck before it stopped.

"Wynn!" Eli croaked.

I was on the steps with my hands on his face, and he was wheezing, and his lips were the wrong color.

"He's been like this since the middle of the night," Delphine said quickly. "Dad brought him home so I could sit with him. I've been so frightened, Wynn."

I looked up at her.

Her eyes went to my collar first.

Then they went to the King.

I felt it more than saw it, a small loosening in her face, and her shoulders came down.

"Where's his inhaler?" I said.

"In the kitchen," she said. "I'll find it."

"The clinic has a nebulizer," I said. "Why isn't he on it?"

"The clinic was closed for the night," Theron said, "pending the budget review. The boy is perfectly comfortable. I'm surprised to see you, Miss MacBain."

He said it pleasantly, to two hundred wolves.

"The offering was received," said Torin.

He had come up the steps behind me without a sound.

The lawn went silent.

"This girl was given freely to the Crown," Torin said. "A tribute's family is the Crown's family. The boy goes where I send him."

"That is not the law," Theron said.

"It is today."

Theron smiled at him, but his fingers had gone white on the railing.

"With respect, Your Majesty, a pack's children are the pack's."

"With respect, Alpha Stroud," Torin said, "you took a sick child out of a clinic bed at one in the morning without his sister's word or the healer's. Say that again in front of your own pack."

Nobody breathed.

Theron said nothing.

I picked Eli up in the quilt.

He weighed nothing.

"Garrick," I said, because I had seen him at the back of the crowd.

Garrick came forward and took the other side of the quilt, and nobody moved to stop him.

I carried my brother down the steps past all of them.

I did not look at Delphine again.

In the back of the truck, Eli breathed through the inhaler a Crown guard had found in his coat, and his color came back.

His eyes went to the front seat.

"Wynn," he whispered. "Is that the King? Is he going to eat us?"

I opened my mouth.

"I'm told I'm very bad at it," Torin said, from the front, without turning around.

Eli thought about that.

"What do you eat?" he asked.

"Toast, mostly."

Eli put his head on my shoulder and, for the first time in a day, closed his eyes and slept.

I watched the road for a long while.

Then Torin spoke, quietly, so only I could hear.

"You asked me what I do with them."

"Yes."

"Your mother's name is the first one on my list."

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