Fated to My Vampire Lord novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Off the Roll

I took my teeth from my father's throat and stepped back.

The change left me slowly.

When it was done I stood on the stones in the grey shift with blood on my shoulder.

Nobody moved.

Dad changed back too, on his knees, an old man with an iron beard and a torn shirt.

He did not look at the cameras.

One of the elders held out the roll.

It was the same long scroll, the same leather case, the same pen on its string.

I took it.

Then I walked to the edge of the dais where he had stood three weeks ago, and I turned to the Ridge.

"Harlan Bellegarde is fifty-four years old and has lied to this pack for seventeen years," I said.

My voice carried over every roof on the hill.

"He took a child's wolf and gave it to his own daughter. He put me in front of you in a white dress and read me off this roll."

Nine hundred wolves did not breathe.

"By pack law, and by the Accord, he is Struck."

I drew the pen through his name.

The pen was cold and dry in my hand, and the line it made was perfectly straight.

I heard a sound go through the crowd, low and rough and relieved.

"You will not go to any Court as a servant," I said to him. "I won't give you to anyone."

I let him wait for it.

"You will leave this Ridge tonight with what you can carry, and you will not come back. That's more than you gave me."

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