My Alpha Arrested Me for Stealing His Money? Find Another Doormat Luna, I'm Out novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Counting the Change

Flora hands back $186 and the receipt in front of Ronan's guards. Ronan invokes sanctuary, and when she crosses the border stone Cedric drops to one knee.

I went down to the border stone in a borrowed flannel shirt, with Ronan on one side of me and the healer's hand under my elbow.

Two Stonecrest guards walked behind us with their hands loose at their sides.

Cedric stood on the road on his own side of the stone.

He hadn't shaved.

His shirt was buttoned wrong, and in the grey light his face had no color at all.

"Flora," he said. "Come home."

"No."

"That's an order from your Alpha."

"I gave back the cuff, Cedric. I'm not your Luna anymore. You can't order me."

"You're my mate."

"I'm a thief. You said so to three states."

His jaw moved.

"The notice was Philippa's draft. I signed it because the Watch said you had planned the whole thing for weeks."

"Planned it."

"They said you had been taking small amounts for months."

"I took two hundred dollars once, at midnight, because I was starving."

"You were not starving. You had a plate at dinner."

I laughed.

It came out ugly and loud, and the guards behind me looked away.

I put my hand in the pocket of the borrowed shirt and took out an envelope.

I had counted it at four in the morning with the healer watching.

"Here's your money," I said.

I stepped over the stone onto the road and held it out.

"One hundred and eighty-six dollars. The change from the two hundred. And here is the receipt from the diner, with the time on it."

I put the slip of paper on top of the bills.

He took them.

His eyes went to the printed line.

"Twelve forty-one," I said. "A cheeseburger, fries, cherry pie and two milks. Fourteen dollars. That's what I stole. That's the whole theft."

"Flora."

"Count it."

"I don't need to count it."

"Count it, Cedric. In front of the guards. You made it a crime in front of seventy wolves."

He looked down at the bills in his hand.

His fingers were shaking so hard that the receipt rattled.

"Philippa said you had been unwell," he said. "She said the healer cleared your diet months ago. Dr. Quince signed off on it."

"Dr. Quince never saw me once after the fourth month."

His head came up.

"I asked for him twice. Philippa said he was busy."

Ronan shifted on his feet behind me, and said nothing.

"Come back, and we'll sort it out inside the lodge," Cedric said. "The pups belong with the pack."

There it was.

He was not asking about the pups, or whether I had eaten, or whether I had slept.

"Pups," I said. "Plural. Did she tell you that? It's twins, Cedric. Two heartbeats. The Stonecrest healer found them at one in the morning, because nobody at Redhollow ever did."

I watched it land.

His face changed all at once.

"Twins," he said.

"Both of them hungry for three months."

He took a step toward me and reached for my wrist.

I let him.

I don't know why I let him.

The second his fingers closed around my skin, the shaking in his hand stopped.

His shoulders came down.

He breathed in deep, for the first time since he got out of the truck.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then I saw his eyes go gold at the edges, and I yanked my arm out of his grip.

"No," I said.

"Flora."

"You don't get to hold me when it suits you and not when I'm starving."

"I didn't know."

"You didn't ask."

He opened his mouth, and a man's voice behind me said, quietly, "That's far enough."

Ronan had come up to my shoulder.

"You're on Redhollow's side of the stone," Ronan said. "She is on mine. Sanctuary was claimed in front of two witnesses last night. Thirty days. You know the law as well as I do."

"I know it," Cedric said.

"Then you know you can't step over."

"I know."

"Good. Go home, Alpha."

Cedric looked at me.

I don't know what he wanted to see.

I had nothing left to give him.

"Thirty days," he said. "Then the Moot. You'll answer the charge in front of the three packs."

"I will," I said. "I'll bring the receipt."

I turned my back on him and stepped over the stone, onto Stonecrest ground, and the healer caught my elbow.

I had barely cleared the border when I heard something heavy hit the dirt behind me.

I spun around.

Cedric was on one knee in the road, both hands flat on the gravel, with his head hanging.

The guards behind me went still.

One of them whispered, "The Alpha just dropped."

He tried to push himself up and couldn't.

I stood there on my side of the border with a hand on my belly, and I did not go back.

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