The Wolf King Demanded a Bride, I Served Him Supper novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Spare Chair
she defines voluntary terms and refuses a royal chair in her own kitchen. HOOK: Sabine's arrival is advanced.
"You can't appoint somebody to be willing," I told the king.
Bram reached for the last piece of chicken.
Corwin stopped his hand.
"His Majesty is speaking."
"I can listen with a chicken leg," Bram said.
Osric lifted his own plate out of the argument.
"Then I'm asking," he said to me.
"Will you accompany me during my visit and speak plainly?"
I wanted to say no immediately.
I also wanted him to hear an answer nobody had polished first.
The thought of Corwin choosing my replacement settled it.
"I choose when I attend," I said.
"You don't give orders in somebody else's home."
"And if I criticize you in public, you don't punish my family."
The king looked at Deborah and Bram.
"Agreed," he said.
Corwin's face went unpleasantly blank.
I added another condition before he recovered.
"I don't audition for anything."
"You've made that clear," Osric said.
He stood, and the screw under his chair held his coat.
He sat down again.
Bram looked away so kindly that I knew he was laughing.
I knelt beside the chair and freed the wool.
Osric's hand rested near my shoulder without touching it.
"Thank you," he said, low enough for me alone.
His voice was much warmer without an audience.
I got up before I liked it too much.
The next morning, a carriage-sized royal van backed into our yard.
I was drinking coffee on the steps.
Two attendants carried out a chair with gilded wolf heads on its arms.
It was too wide for the kitchen door.
"His Majesty's domestic seat," Corwin announced.
Deborah came outside carrying a plate of toast.
"We have chairs."
"One tore his coat."
"That one will get new screws," she said.
The attendants turned the grand chair sideways.
It still wouldn't fit.
Corwin told them to remove the door.
I set down my coffee.
"No."
"Miss Henshaw, we are accommodating a king," Corwin said.
"You're removing my aunt's kitchen door."
Osric came around the van wearing an ordinary blue sweater.
The sweater made him look less remote and more dangerously touchable.
He inspected the chair wedged against our doorframe.
"I didn't request that," he said.
Corwin explained that the king shouldn't have to request appropriate respect.
Deborah offered Osric the toast.
He took a piece himself.
I watched Corwin watch him do it.
"Put it in the sitting room," the envoy told the attendants.
The sitting room door was narrower.
Bram measured it with his walking stick, although he could see the difference.
"We could take the wall out," he suggested.
Deborah looked at him.
"I don't want the wall out," Bram explained.
"I'm contributing to the discussion."
They carried the chair to the porch.
Its front legs stood on our doormat.
Its back legs stood in the flowerbed.
Osric tried sitting in it.
The chair tipped gently backward.
I grabbed his wrist before he reached the lavender.
He caught my elbow and stood.
We remained close enough that I could smell his soap.
His thumb moved once against my sleeve.
"Your chair needs a companion," I said.
He looked at our joined arms.
"Apparently."
I let him go.
Corwin proposed putting the chair beneath the porch steps.
Bram said it would make an expensive place for muddy boots.
Deborah said our boots already had somewhere satisfactory.
The attendants waited with their hands under the golden wolf heads.
They looked tired.
I fetched them both water.
Osric helped lift the chair back into the van.
Corwin tried to stop him and nearly got his foot under a leg.
The king waited until the attendants had drunk.
"Leave it at the pack hall," he told them.
Then he looked at me.
"Does that violate the home rule?"
"You're ordering your own chair around," I said.
"I'll allow it."
He smiled then, briefly and without checking who could see.
I smiled back before remembering my drawer upstairs.
Corwin took an envelope from his coat.
He held it toward the king, carefully excluding me.
"The intended consort has moved her arrival forward," he said.
"Miss Bracken will be here tomorrow."
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