Chapter 18: Alaric's Truth

Alaric's POV

My mother's hand was steady on my arm, and I leaned on it all the way down the aisle.

Four hundred people watched me come.

I had lived in front of those faces my whole life.

I had never once been afraid of them until now.

"Alaric," my father said from the Crowhurst bench. "Sit down."

"No."

I had never said that word to him.

It came out cracked and quiet, and the hall heard every letter.

I stopped at the edge of the stone.

Rosalind stood on the slab in her black coat, with her chin up.

She looked at me with no hope in her face at all.

I deserved that.

"I came to speak to the Council," I said. "I am the heir of Crowhurst, and I was the groom in the pledge."

"The heir is unwell," the envoy said quickly. "The Council has heard the House's case."

"The Council has heard my father's case. It hasn't heard mine."

Somebody in the gallery said, "Let him."

The envoy sat.

I took off my gloves.

The skin of my hands was raw and pink and weeping, and a murmur ran along the benches.

"This is the sun," I said.

"I walked in it for three years, and I thought it was easy for me. I thought I was strong."

"I held her hand in every car and told her the glare was gentler that way."

"I didn't know it was true."

My father rose.

"Alaric, enough."

"I didn't know," I said, louder. "Nobody told me the ring was a shield. Nobody told me it ran on her yes."

"You hid it for three hundred years, Father, and you hid it from me too."

My father's face changed.

He sat down slowly.

I turned to Rosalind.

"You sat on the sunny side of the car because I asked you to."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Abandoned Vampire Bride Walked Away from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.