The Werewolf King's Regret: Punishing the Wrong Daughter novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Her Father's Hand

My father found me in the corridor outside the kitchens the next morning, with a scullery maid scrubbing the flags a few paces away.

"Linnet."

He had not changed in a month, only grown greyer.

He took my elbow and drew me toward the window.

"Let go."

"Hear me out. One minute."

He pulled a folded paper from inside his coat, with the Marwood seal already pressed in the wax.

"Sign this," he said. "A confession. That you put wolfsbane in the cup, out of jealousy, and your sister is blameless. Sign it and the king will be satisfied."

"Satisfied?"

"He will lift the sentence. I'll take you home as my own daughter, and put your name back on the roll. A Marwood again, Linnet. A house, a table, a place." His hand tightened. "You'll want for nothing."

The maid's brush had gone still.

Down the corridor, a page carrying linen stopped as well.

I looked at my father's face.

It was the face I had waited for all my life to be kind.

"You want me to sign that I tried to kill a six-year-old," I said clearly, "so that Odessa can be queen."

"Keep your voice down."

"No."

"Linnet."

"You held her shoulder in the yard while the chain came down on me." I did not lower my voice. "Do you know what I counted? I counted how many times you looked at me. It was none."

The page was staring now, openly.

"I will never sign it," I said. "Not for a roll, not for a house, not for you."

I took the paper from his fingers.

I tore it in half, and half again, and dropped the pieces at his feet.

"Girl," he said, and went red.

"Alpha Aldous."

The voice came from the stair.

The king stood at the foot of it, with Perrin a step behind.

He had heard.

I saw it in the white line round his mouth.

"The keeper of the nursery is under my roof and my protection," said Lucan. "If you press her again to sign anything, you will do it in the great hall in front of your own Hold, so that everyone can hear what you ask."

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