Fated to My Vampire Lord novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Bite Clause

The Council hall was full by noon the next day.

Three hundred elders sat in their tiers, and the cameras were back on every pillar.

I walked in on Tiernan's arm, and nobody looked at me with pity anymore.

They looked at my hands.

"Lady Willa Bellegarde," said the chair, from her high seat. "You are no longer wolfless. This hall has seen it."

"It has," I said.

"Then the Pairing Clause applies to you in full."

She smiled, and I saw the woman beside her in the front row.

She was young and elegant, in a pale green dress, with her hands folded.

The chair's niece.

"The Clause is simple," the chair went on. "A vampire heir may keep a wolf under his name for one year as a courtesy."

She let that sit.

"He may keep her for good only if the pairing is sealed by a bite."

"We know the Clause," Tiernan said.

"Then you know the Council's wish. The bite, by the end of Midwinter week."

She spread her red sleeves.

"Or the pairing is dissolved, and House Crowhurst will have a fitting match found for it."

The niece lowered her eyes, very prettily.

I stepped forward.

"May I speak?"

"A wolf may speak when she is addressed," the chair said.

"I keep the archive," I said. "I read the Clause this morning, all of it."

A murmur went through the tiers.

"A sealed pairing puts me beyond the Council's reach," I said. "That is why you want it dissolved."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Fated to My Vampire Lord from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.