The Alpha's Regret: Losing His True Mate novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Hand It Stays On
Nobody in the ballroom made a sound.
Muriel walked up the dais steps one at a time, leaning on her cane, and stopped beside me.
She lifted my hand in both of hers and held it so the gold light fell across the front rows.
"I'll say it once, plainly, so nobody has to guess," she said. "The Brandis ring will not stay on any hand but the Alpha's fated mate's. I wore it for thirty years because my husband and I were mates. His mother wore it for forty. It has fallen off every other woman who ever tried it, and there have been four."
A murmur started at the back and rolled forward.
"It fell off Imogen at the first toast," Muriel said. "She knew it that night, and she called the nearest woman a thief rather than admit it."
"That's a lie," Imogen said.
She was holding the railing with both hands.
"Ask her what she did with the jeweler," Muriel said. "Ask her about the tape."
Imogen's mouth opened.
No sound came out.
"Elder," the Redfern Alpha said slowly. "You're telling me this is a mate ring."
"I'm telling you the ring has chosen the hand it will sit on."
"And it's not my daughter's."
"No."
He turned his heavy head to the man standing beside his daughter.
"Alpha Brandis," he said. "Is that true?"
The elder in white stepped back out of the way.
Everyone was looking at Jarrett.
He stood with his arms at his sides and his chest still moving hard.
His eyes were on my hand.
"Yes," he said.
Imogen made a small, broken sound.
"I need you to say it so everyone hears it," the Redfern Alpha said. "What is true?"
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