The Alpha King's Heart novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Toast

By four o'clock the King's own grain wagons were rolling down the hill to the human district, with Emmett riding on the lead one.

I had stacked the first ten crates myself.

By seven I was standing in front of a mirror in a dress I did not want.

Selma had picked it out of the Keep's closets, dark green with long sleeves and a high back that covered my scars.

"You have to go," she said, fastening the buttons. "Every sector Alpha is here for the council tomorrow. If you hide upstairs, Strake will say you're afraid."

"I'm not afraid."

"Then walk in like you aren't."

The dining hall at the Keep had a table that seated thirty.

Twenty wolves sat along it in black and gray, with silver at their throats.

They went quiet when I walked in.

The King sat at the head.

He stood up when he saw me, and so, one by one, with visible reluctance, did every wolf at the table.

I wanted to turn around and run.

Instead I went to the seat beside his and sat down.

"Alpha Strake," the King said pleasantly. "I understand you've been busy today."

Strake sat halfway down the table in a pale suit with a glass of wine in his hand.

He had his shaved head tipped to one side and a pleasant smile on his face.

"The humans are hungry, my King," he said. "That's the natural result of disorder."

"You emptied a grain depot."

"I returned some trucks. Perhaps they were mine."

"They were the district's."

"Everything in the district is the pack's," Strake said, and a few of the wolves nodded.

I put my napkin in my lap and said nothing.

I had decided that.

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