He Signed the Exile Order, So I Took the Wards North novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: What I Lent Him

Catriona's POV

Ronan came back at noon with mud to his knees and a look I had not seen on him.

"Sterne said to ask you something," he said.

We were in the ward-room, the three of us, with Hester sorting thread by the window.

"What?"

"What your father was."

Hester's hands stopped.

I put down the spool I was holding and looked at the wall.

"Corvin would," I said.

"Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"Whatever he thinks he knows."

I had hidden it for fifteen years.

I had hidden it from the Concord, from my husband, and from every wolf in Greyfell.

I looked at Ronan standing in the doorway, with his stitched shoulder and his tired eyes, and found I did not want to hide it from him.

"My father was the Alpha of Greyfell," I said.

Ronan said nothing.

"The Concord exiled him north when I was seventeen. They said he'd refused a tribute levy."

"He refused it because it would have starved the pack."

"You know that?"

"I read the ledgers," Ronan said carefully.

I did not catch the way he said it.

I should have.

"I was his only child," I said. "A daughter. The old rule says a woman can't hold a border, so when he went north, the Concord was going to give Greyfell to the first man who asked. Hester kept the wards alive for five years. She was past fifty and tired, and I was twenty-two."

"I was keeping it standing with spit and string," Hester said without looking up.

"Then Corvin asked to mate me."

"The Beta's son," Ronan said.

"He was charming. He was kind. He made me laugh." I turned over my scarred hand. "He wanted Greyfell and I wanted it kept. If he held the seat, nobody would ask about my blood."

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