Chapter 11: Rules, Alpha

"What else?" my father said.

His voice was hoarse.

My mother looked at him, and at the cameras on the wall, and at the envoy writing in his notebook.

Then she shut her mouth and her face closed like a door.

"Not here," she said. "Not in front of her."

"Luna."

"I'll tell you at home, Bram. Not in front of a crowd."

The envoy snapped his notebook shut.

"Alpha Hallam, the Council will send for you both in three days."

He looked at my mother.

"Until then, I advise that neither of you contacts Miss Hallam."

My father nodded without looking at anyone.

He took my mother's arm, and she let him.

They walked to the car without speaking.

Garrick stood at the foot of the steps with his hands open at his sides.

"Katja," he said.

"Not today, Garrick."

He nodded and swallowed and went after them.

Emmett followed him with the page of his cancelled internship crumpled in his fist, and nobody stopped to watch him go.

Odette did not move.

"I'm staying," she said, to the steps. "If that's all right."

She wiped her face.

"I'll call Silvermoon and tell them I'm sick."

"It's all right," I said.

Corwin said, "There's a guest room."

That was all, and it was the longest day of my life.

I ran drills until my legs shook.

I ate dinner across from Odette, who talked too fast about nothing.

She fell asleep sitting up in the library with her shoes on.

A little after eleven, I knocked on Corwin's study door.

He opened it himself, with no coat, sleeves rolled to the elbow.

"You should be asleep," he said.

"I couldn't."

"Katja."

"I want to ask you something," I said. "And I want you to answer it with the truth."

"Ask."

"Did you want a wife, or did you want me?"

He went very still.

"I wanted you," he said, "from the moment I smelled you through a pane of glass."

His voice was low and steady.

"I didn't know your name. I had a treaty in my pocket that promised me to someone else."

He held my eyes.

"I stood there wanting you so badly my hands shook."

I could hear my own pulse.

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