Unmarked: My Mate Refused, The Alpha King Didn't novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Moot Hears

"Noon is when the Moot sits," Pippa said. "So you have exactly as long as it takes you to put your shoes on."

I found my dress on the floor and my shoes under the bed.

The place beside me was empty, and the sheet had gone cold.

"Where is he?"

"In the great hall, pretending he isn't pacing." She tossed me a brush. "He told me to tell you he can't speak for you. The Moot only hears a refused wife in her own voice."

"What do I say?"

"Whatever you meant when you told Stanmore through a door that you weren't his to collect."

She grinned at my face.

"Half the east wing heard it. The cooks are naming their children after you."

I laughed in spite of myself, and she caught my elbow.

"Elsie. I've known my brother for thirty-one years. He doesn't carry women through the gallery in front of the Moot."

I pinned my hair up with my hands shaking.

Then I walked into the great hall.

The seven packs were seated in tiers along both walls, and every head turned.

Thane stood at the foot of the dais in a plain black coat.

He didn't look at me, and his fingers flexed once against his thigh.

I remembered exactly where those fingers had been.

My face went hot, and I made myself keep walking.

The presiding elder of the Moot, a white-haired woman with a stick, rapped it on the stone.

"The petition of Jasper Stanmore, for the return of his lawful wife."

Jasper rose from the Stanmore bench in his good blue coat.

"Elders, my wife collapsed at your feast yesterday with a fever. She has been taken from my care by Alpha King Kinross, who has kept her in his rooms all night."

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