Too Old for My Alpha, Worth the Wait for His Rival novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Sanctuary

I got her into the lodge kitchen, sat her on a stool, and cleaned the cut on her lip with warm water.

"Who did this?" I asked.

"A warden's elbow," my younger daughter said. "At the fence. I climbed it and he grabbed my coat."

"Your father?"

"He didn't touch me." She held her chin still while I dabbed. "Jolene came home from here crying, and he screamed at her for an hour. Then he said I'd go to school in a dress and learn to be quiet."

"So I left."

Eliza stood in the doorway with her arms folded and her face hard.

"He knew you'd run here," Eliza said. "He'll come for her."

"I know," I said.

He came at noon.

Six of his wardens drove up to the Ash Mountain gate in two trucks, with Braden riding in front in his good coat.

By the time I walked down the drive, half of Alexander's pack had gathered along the fence line, quiet and watchful.

Alexander came down beside me and stopped half a pace back.

I had asked him to.

"I speak for myself," I'd said that morning. "You stand where they can see you and say nothing unless I look at you."

"And if he touches you?"

"Then you can say a great deal."

Braden stepped out of the truck and looked at the straw still caught in my hair.

"Catriona," he said. "Hand over my daughter."

"She is also mine."

"By pack law she's a minor under her Alpha's roof." He raised his voice so the wardens and the fence line could hear. "You have kidnapped a sixteen-year-old child."

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