Rejected by My Mate, Claimed by the Alpha King novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Resignation

Alaric's POV

I wrote the letter at the desk in my mother's old study, with the crown on the blotter beside me.

It was a plain iron band, black with age. Every King of Montana had worn it since the Court was founded.

I had worn it for seven years, and I had never once looked at it for long.

"To the Speaker of the Moon Court," I wrote. "I resign the crown of Montana, effective this hour."

I wrote one line more.

"No wolf should be forced to choose me to keep it."

I read it twice and signed it.

Wynne was asleep in the clinic's back room at Silver Creek.

I had left a note on the pillow that said I had gone to fix things, and I had left before she woke.

I told myself it was kindness. It was also a coward's way to leave.

She had said, not until I know it's mine to give.

She was waiting for the Court. If I took away the Court, she would have nothing to wait for, and nobody could point at her and say the King owed his crown to her.

And Delphine could not choose a man who wasn't a King.

That was the plan. It was a bad plan, and I was sure of it.

I put the crown in a leather bag and drove down the mountain in the grey light.

Two miles from the gate, a small old car sat across the road with its hazards on.

Agnes got out of it.

She was wearing her good coat and holding her cane.

I stopped the truck and rolled down the window.

"Get out of my road," I said. "Please."

"No."

"Agnes."

"I drove for two hours in the dark in a car that shouldn't be driven," she said. "Get out of the truck, Alaric Rooke."

I got out.

She looked at the leather bag on my seat.

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