The Alpha's Slave-Born Daughter Made Kings Kneel novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Wrists

Evander names her his mate and she answers that his Crown made her mother a thrall; they set terms, and the healer's bed for her mother is found empty.

I held my wrists out.

The cuffs were black iron, two fingers wide, with a seam down the side where the smith had closed them.

I had never seen the inside of the seam in daylight.

The King stepped close enough that I felt the heat coming off his coat.

He did not touch me.

He bent his head and looked at the thin gap where the iron met my skin.

A line of silver light showed there, no wider than a thread.

It had never shown before, not once.

"There," he said quietly.

"It's the iron," I said. "It's polished on the inside. It catches the fire."

"There's no fire lit."

I pulled my hands back and he let me.

His eyes had gone amber all the way through.

I told myself that meant he was angry.

"The moment I walked into that Hall," he said, "my wolf stopped. I haven't had one quiet moment in my head in nine years, and it stopped, and it looked at you."

I said nothing.

"You know what that means."

"It means you have a wolf that likes thralls."

"It means you're my mate, Linnea."

I had not told him my name.

He had listened to the whole Hall say it.

"No," I said.

"I don't need you to say yes."

"I don't need you to say that word. I know how kings take thralls, and I know what they call it afterward."

The words came out flat and cold, and I let them.

"Your Crown raided the southern lakes twenty-six years ago. That's where my mother was taken, and that's why she's a thrall. Your Crown made her one."

He did not argue.

A muscle moved in his jaw, and he turned toward the window.

"My father did that," he said. "Not me."

"Your father's name is on the Crown. Yours is next to it."

For a while the only sound was the wind on the glass.

"What do you want?" he said.

It was the first time anyone in my life had asked me that.

I answered fast, before I could be ashamed.

"My mother out of the kennels and into the healer's room, with a bed and a fire. And nobody throws a knife at her again."

"Done."

"You heard my father."

"I heard a man who can't be corrected in his own hall. I can correct him on who sleeps where in the guest wing, and the healer's room is in the guest wing."

He said it plainly, as if it cost him nothing, and I knew it cost him a great deal.

"In return?" I said.

"You serve my table. Three nights."

"That's what you already said in the Hall."

"Then I'll add the rest. I won't touch you unless you say I may."

I waited for the trick.

"And I won't claim you in front of anyone," he said. "Not until you say that too."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to have the choice," he said, "and no one has given you one."

The words were kind, and I did not trust them.

Kind men in this world wanted something, and I did not know yet what he wanted.

But I saw his hand where it hung at his side, and it was shut so tightly his knuckles were white.

That was not a man who felt nothing.

"Three nights," I said. "And Mama sleeps in a bed tonight."

"Tonight."

He opened the door, and the soldiers on the landing straightened.

"Take her to the healer's room," he told the nearest one. "Bring the woman Ilse there, and tell the healer she's mine to answer for."

He did not look at me again.

I went down the stairs behind a soldier, and every step of the way my wrists pulsed warm under the iron.

The healer's room was a small stone room with a cot and a hearth, and a smell of boiled herbs.

The healer herself stood at the cot's foot, wringing her hands.

"She's not here yet," she said. "They said the kennels, and then they said she'd come, and I've been waiting with the water hot."

"She'll come," I said, and I sat on the stool to wait.

The door opened and Sunniva came in.

She had a covered bowl in both hands and a shawl over her cream gown.

"Linnea," she said, and her face crumpled. "Oh, Linnea, I'm so sorry about all of that. Osric is a brute, and Father never listens to me."

I stood up, not knowing what to do with my face.

"I brought broth for your mother," she said. "It's the good kind, with marrow. I'll sit with her if you want to rest."

She put the bowl down on the table.

Then she took my hands, gently, and looked at the cuffs.

She turned my wrists over and looked at the seams for a long time.

I pulled free.

"That's kind," I said. "Thank you."

"Anything," she said, smiling. "You're my sister."

She had never said that word to me before.

She left with her shawl pulled tight, and I stood holding the door she had closed.

Something was wrong with her face, and I could not tell what.

I waited another hour by the cold hearth.

Nobody brought my mother.

The soldier outside finally went to look and came back with his jaw tight.

"The kennel's empty," he said. "Her chain's lying open. There's blood in the straw out in the yard."

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