A Hatred Most Pure novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Envoy

Dietrich Mayhew came into the great hall in a blue coat with silver buttons, smiling.

He had always been handsome, with sandy hair and a wide, easy face, and at thirty-four he wore it better than he had at sixteen.

Eight Saltmarsh wolves walked in behind him, carrying a white flag of truce.

The Urekai watched them from the benches in silence.

I stood by a pillar at the side of the hall with Bram at my elbow.

My thighs still ached from the night before, and I hated that I noticed it.

"Alpha Rooke," Dietrich said, and bowed.

It was a small bow, a little too neat.

"I come under truce, in good faith, to settle an old matter between our packs."

Ansel sat in the tall chair for the first time since I had come.

"Say it."

"A woman of Saltmarsh ran from her pack eighteen years ago," Dietrich said. "Our law calls that desertion, and the penalty belongs to the Alpha of the pack she deserted. That's me." He opened his hands. "I'm told you have her."

"I have her."

"Then I ask for her back. Your hold has better things to do than keep a Saltmarsh runaway." He smiled around the hall. "And I'll pay for her trouble. Name any price."

A low growl went along the benches.

Dietrich heard it and tilted his head, pleasant.

"I don't blame them," he said. "Hard people, the hill people. But you did well, you know, after we took your orphans in. Roofs over their heads, three meals a day. It's a shame none of them remember it kindly."

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