Claiming The Spare Twin novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Beta's Study

My mother stood in the doorway of her study with one hand still on the knob.

She looked at the open drawer, the green box on the desk and the black ledger in my hands.

She did not look surprised. She looked tired.

"Put it down," she said.

"No."

I held it against my chest. My own pulse was so loud I could barely hear myself.

"Ten years, Mother," I said. "Tell me what I was before you started."

"Lower your voice."

"Why?"

"Because the walls here have ears."

"Good," said Finlay.

He was in the corridor behind her, with two Council guards at his shoulders.

He must have heard me raise my voice. He walked right through her doorway.

My mother's spine went rigid.

"Alpha, you are in a Beta's private study without invitation."

"I'm in my own pack house," he said. "Linnea, are you all right?"

"No," I said. "Read it."

I held out the ledger.

He read standing up, and I watched his face. His eyes went down the page and his mouth went thin.

When he reached the last line, he closed the book very gently.

"Explain it," he said to my mother. "Every word. Now."

For a long moment she said nothing.

She walked to the desk, sat down in her chair, laid her hands flat on the blotter and said, "Very well."

It was the voice she used for giving orders to the kitchen.

"My daughters were born one minute apart," she said. "The first was a girl with a strong, healthy cry. The second came out blue and silent. I thought she was dead."

"Which one was blue?" I asked.

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