Semua Bab Craving my Sister’s Husband: Bab 11 - Bab 20

CHAPTER 12 — The ScarThe maid is unlacing my dress when her hands go still.I feel the pause and hesitation immediately. Her fingers have stopped moving against my spine and I can feel her breath catch somewhere behind my shoulder.I wait but I do not turn. I let her work through whatever is happening in her head.She moves again, slow and careful. She pulls the dress down over my shoulders, my arms, my waist. The fabric pools at my feet and I am standing in nothing but the thin slip beneath, the one that stops above my ribs, the one that leaves the scar completely visible.Her hands freeze again.I look down at myself. The scar runs below my ribs, long and pale, the skin raised and twisted. A scar from a night I do not talk about. A wound that was never supposed to heal clean.I feel her eyes on it, I feel the exact moment her mind starts working through what it means. Sailyn does not have this scar, the Luna does not have this scar.She knows.I turn before she can speak.She is yo

CHAPTER 14 — The KissThe pack elder studies me from the moment he arrives.He is old, older than any elder in our pack, with grey hair that hangs past his shoulders and eyes that have been watching wolves for longer than I have been alive. He sits across from me in the receiving hall, his hands folded over his walking stick, and he does not blink when he looks at me.I feel his eyes moving over my posture, my face and the way I hold myself in the chair.I keep my shoulders back. I keep my chin level. I keep my expression still, the way I have been practicing since I walked through these gates. Sailyn would not fidget, Sailyn would not look away and Sailyn would meet his gaze and smile and make him feel like he was the only person in the room.I smile. He tilts his head.He leans toward the man beside him. His lips move, I cannot hear what he says but I do not need to. I feel the shift in the room before I can name it. The air changes. The guards near the door exchange a glance. The e

CHAPTER 16 — The TimelineI spread the timeline across the floor and Tywin crouches beside me and goes through it carefully.I have been building it in pieces for days, cross-referencing everything I pulled from the archive with what I already knew.Tywin picks up the first page, he scans it, sets it down and picks up the next."The Silverlings knew her exact schedule three months before the kidnapping," I say. "Exactly. The route, the times, the specific days she moved without full escort."Tywin looks at the papers spread across the floor. His hand hovers over one, then another, then another."That level of detail is not gathered in a week," he says."Yeah." I nod in agreement.He picks up a pen from the floor. He circles one date on the timeline, three months before Sailyn was taken. I stare at the circled date and the weight of it settles into me, pressing against my chest."Someone planned this long before Sailyn was Luna," Tywin says.I do not answer. The date is right there, c

CHAPTER 18 — She KnowsI go to the lower cells against direct orders. The guards are not supposed to let anyone through without the Alpha's approval, but I am Luna or at least, they think I am. I hold my head high and I look at the young guard standing at the entrance and I wait. He hesitates for three seconds, then he steps aside.The lower cells are cold. The smell of damp air and rust hit me. I find the slot in the door at the end of the corridor. The Silverling prisoner is inside, they brought him in three days ago, caught near the border with maps that should not have been in his hands. He has not spoken to anyone since. I stand on the other side of the door and I watch.He is sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his arms resting on his knees. He does not look injured. The pack does not torture prisoners but he looks tired. The kind of tiredness that comes from being asked the same questions over and over, from holding the same answers behind your teeth for days o

CHAPTER 20 — The FactionTywin finds me in the corridor after our conversation behind the training hall. His face is tight, his jaw set in a way I have learned to recognize. Something is wrong."There is a meeting," he says quietly. "In the small council room. The one at the end of the corridor."I stop walking. "What kind of meeting?"He glances around. The corridor is empty but he still lowers his voice."The kind that does not include the Alpha."My stomach tightens. "Who called it?""Elder Maris, Elder Tolland and a few others. I do not have all the names yet."I look down the corridor, the small council room is at the very end, tucked away behind the archive, far from the main hall. It is where the elders go when they do not want to be overheard."Take me there," I say.He hesitates. "Solyn—""Take me there."He nods. He turns and walks, I follow.We stay close to the walls and our footsteps are light. The small council room is at the end of the corridor. Tywin crouches by the d