Substitute Luna, Runaway With His Quadruplets novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Four

Nora tells the elders she carries four pups, Priscilla calls her scan fake, and Rhys makes her sign the divorce; the pen leaves a ring of frost he covers with his hand.

On Monday I walked back into the Moon Hall by the front doors.

Nobody had asked me to knock.

Three elders sat at the long table where I had poured their coffee for two years. The Beta sat at the end with his eyes on his hands.

Rhys was at the head of the table, in the Alpha's chair, and Priscilla sat at his right.

She wore my seat.

It was a small thing. It was the only chair with a cushion.

Gideon stood behind her, rubbing his shoulder. I saw him look at my hands and look away.

"Nora Thorne," the oldest elder said, and read from a sheet. "You are charged with passing as the Beta's blood, to win the Luna's seat by false name. How do you answer?"

"I didn't win anything," I said. "I was given to a man at the altar, and I did what I was told for two years."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only true one in the room."

Rhys looked up then.

It was the first time he had looked straight at me since the sixth refusal.

His face was tired. He hadn't shaved.

I noticed that and hated that I noticed.

"The pack has settled the charge," he said. "You'll sign the divorce today. You keep your clothes and your car. The Thorne name goes back to the Thornes."

"All right."

Priscilla slid a paper across the polished wood.

Her hand was warm when it touched mine.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I wish it were different."

I took the pen she offered. I didn't sign yet.

"I have something to say first."

"No more speeches," Gideon said.

"Let her speak," said Rhys.

I put the printout on the table and smoothed it flat with my palm.

"I'm pregnant," I said. "It's four. Four heartbeats, Rhys, from the night of the full moon."

Nobody breathed.

The oldest elder dropped his reading glasses on the table.

I watched Rhys's face. I'd spent two years learning to read it, and I saw every part of it move.

His eyes went to my stomach.

Then to the paper.

Then he shut his eyes.

"Four," he said.

"Yes."

"A wolfless female carrying four." He gave one short breath that wasn't a laugh. "There's no record of it in all our books."

"Look at the picture."

Priscilla leaned over to read it. She read it for a long moment.

Then she lifted her face, and her eyes were full of tears.

"Rhys," she said gently. "This has no clinic stamp. There's no date and no name. It could be anyone's."

"It's Joanna Pike's portable scanner. She came to my grandmother's house at midnight."

"Joanna Pike is a human," Gideon said. "She'll say whatever you like."

"Then ask her. Ask the clinic. Someone from this Hall opened my scan file at six on Saturday morning."

I didn't look at Priscilla when I said it.

I looked at the elders.

The youngest one frowned and glanced down the table.

"I was asleep at six," Priscilla said. Her voice shook. "Rhys, I don't know what she means. I only want her to be well."

"Nobody has said you did anything," Rhys said quietly.

He said it to her, not to me.

I felt my chest go hollow where the bond had been.

"Then send for the pack healer," I said. "Have her check me in front of all of you."

"The pack healer works for the Luna's household," said the oldest elder.

"Then she works for Priscilla."

The room went tight.

Rhys lifted his hand to quiet them and said the thing I will never forgive.

"Why now?"

He asked it plainly. He wasn't cruel.

"Six months you never said a word. You stood here Friday and held your tongue. And today you have four."

"I didn't know on Friday."

"You didn't know."

"No."

"You came here to keep the seat."

I stared at him.

I couldn't think of one thing to say that would reach him. He had decided who I was before I walked in.

So I said the only true thing left.

"I didn't come for your belief, Rhys. I came so no one could say I hid them from you."

I bent and signed the paper.

The pen scratched out my name, and the ink went white under my hand.

Frost spread out from the signature in a thin ring and stopped at the edge of the page.

Rhys looked at it.

His whole body stopped, and I saw his hand come up and cover it.

He drew the paper toward him and kept his palm over it.

"The pack will announce a new Luna at the next moon," he said, not looking at me. "Priscilla and I will stand before it together."

Priscilla's hand slid into his.

I walked out.

I did not look back.

In the car I made my decision, and it was one plain sentence.

I would get a second scan, signed and stamped by Joanna, and I would put it in Rhys Calloway's hand myself.

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