They Never Wanted a Female Gamma, So I Built the Pack That Beat Theirs novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: Matthias's Ribbon
Matthias's POV
She came up the stairs at one in the morning, the night before the Crown's recess ended.
I knew her step by now.
She climbed it as if the stairs belonged to her family and she was checking the work.
I had been sitting on the bed in my shirtsleeves for two hours with the arbiter's ribbon in my lap.
It was a strip of black silk, two yards long, which every arbiter of the Moot wears from shoulder to hip on the opening day.
The Crown issues it with the pin.
I had been told it was ceremonial.
She opened the door without knocking.
She had her hair down and a gray sweater on, and the bandage on her left hand had gone dirty at the edges.
She did not say hello.
She looked at the ribbon.
"What's that?" she said.
"The ribbon," I said.
"It goes on at the gavel."
"Give it to me."
I did.
She wound it once around her fist, and I watched the black silk go taut between her knuckles.
I had not slept well in nine days.
I had not slept well since the open grave.
"Take your shirt off," Zosia said.
I took it off.
"Lie down.
"Arms over your head."
I lay down.
I was thirty-four years old.
I had written the ledger of six Moots and kept it true through two attempts at bribery and one at murder.
I put my arms over my head at the first word she said.
She knelt on the mattress beside me.
She took my left wrist and wound the silk around it three times.
She pulled it through the iron rail of the headboard.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Never Wanted a Female Gamma, So I Built the Pack That Beat Theirs are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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