The Alpha Divorced Me, Now He Begs at My Grave novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Headquarters Door

Locked out of headquarters, she reads the seal clause aloud before the clerks and walks in; Caleb returns her ledger and a voice says one word in her head: Mine.

The Stonecrown headquarters stood at the top of a stone ramp, and four duty wolves were standing across its doors.

Behind them was the Beta, with his arms folded.

I had signed his raises, and I had signed his wedding leave.

"Lady Rosalind," he said. "I'm sorry. The Alpha's order is that you aren't to enter headquarters until the Crown processes the change."

"The Crown hasn't processed anything."

"That's exactly why I'm being careful."

Behind me, the clerks coming off shift had slowed to listen. So had the grain inspectors, the courier boys and a pair of the Alpha's cooks.

Keely leaned toward my ear. "Do you want me to fetch Alastair?"

"No."

I opened the black case on the stone rail beside the ramp and turned to the last page.

"Beta, you're a careful man," I said, loud enough for the ramp to hear. "So I'll read this slowly."

I read the clause aloud.

The supply seal binds Larchmoor's wagons and Stonecrown's border forces for the term of the marriage. It may be renewed or withdrawn only by the signature of the Luna of Stonecrown.

"Until the dissolution is processed, I'm the Luna of Stonecrown," I said. "The seal is in my name. Every wagon that crosses the southern gate crosses on my signature."

"That's a legal paper, my lady."

"It's the reason your wolves ate meat all last winter."

One of the clerks coughed to cover a laugh.

The Beta's eyes went to the case and back to me.

"If you lock me out of the building where the seal ledgers sit," I said, "I can't sign the monthly release. And on the first of the month the wagons stop."

He didn't move.

"I'll write down that you refused me, and the time," I said. "The Royal Council reads these records. So does the king."

Keely took out her pencil and, in front of everyone, wrote the hour.

The Beta stared at the pencil.

Then he stepped aside, and the duty wolves stepped with him.

"Ten minutes at the seal desk," he said. "No more. And I'm reporting this."

"Report it kindly," I said. "You'll need the grain."

I started up the ramp.

A tall woman in a high grey collar came out of the great doors above me and stopped at the top.

"Rosalind."

Hortense had never once said my name as if she liked it.

"The Luna's keys," she said. "You're no longer entitled to carry them. Give them to me, and I'll see that Ansley has them when she's ready."

She held out her hand, palm up, in front of forty people.

"Ansley isn't Luna," I said. "I am."

"Not for much longer."

"Until the Crown says so, I'm the Luna, and these keys open the seal desk."

I unhooked the ring from my belt, held it up so everyone could see it, and hooked it back on again.

"If you'd like them, Hortense, you can ask the king."

Her mouth went thin. "You've been rude to me for six years."

"I've been polite to you for six years. Today I'm not."

Someone near the ramp let out a low whistle and was hushed.

Hortense turned and swept inside without another word.

I walked in after her and went straight to the seal desk.

Keely had already put the ledgers in order. I signed the monthly release with my full name, in ink, and my hand didn't shake.

The ledger on the top shelf was too high for me.

I stretched for it, and the whole row slid and fell, and a heavy book hit the floor with a crack.

"Allow me."

I knew his voice before I looked.

Caleb Ostrow knelt, gathered the ledgers in his arms in one go and stood with them against his chest.

He was taller than I remembered from the corridor, and he smelled of cold air and pine smoke.

"I'm not here to carry your books," he said. "I came to report to the Beta. But I was on the ramp for the end of it, and I wanted you to know I heard."

"Heard what?"

"The part where you said you'd been polite to her for six years." His mouth moved at one corner. "I've been trying to do that for four."

I laughed. I hadn't meant to.

He held out the last ledger to me, and his fingers touched mine as I took it.

The mind-link in my head had been silent since Alastair cut it.

I heard one word in it, low and clear, in a voice I had never heard.

Mine.

I jerked my hand away.

Caleb hadn't moved his lips. He was looking at me with wide, startled eyes.

"My lady?" he said. "Are you all right?"

"Did you say something to me?"

"No," he said. "Did you hear something?"

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