All Chapters of My Husband’s Brother Is My Mate?!: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

We left on a bright, windy morning, eleven riders and four pack horses, with half the pack lining the road to wave us off.It was a strange party.Cain rode at the front in his plain black coat, with Vivienne at his side on a dappled mare. Maren followed in a covered cart, grumbling, with Mara beside her holding a basket of travel biscuits. Bryn rode rear guard, grim and silent, her sword across her saddle. Beta Ketra of Redfang, a lean old woman with a face like a hatchet and eyes like flint, led six Redfang warriors in a tight formation around us. Varek had sent them with a gruff message. I cannot leave the border. But if anyone touches my niece, tell them I will find them.And Tomas.Tomas rode beside me on his big brown horse, whistling a marching tune, his thick beard blowing in the wind. He had volunteered the night before. The Luna will want someone cheerful, he had said. I am the most cheerful man in the pack."Is it true," he asked, "that the Court sits in a palace made entir

(Cain's point of view)I had never been pulled before.I had been pushed. I had been ordered, frightened, and cornered. For eleven years I had been dragged through life by duty, by guilt, by the cold, steady drumbeat of the next thing that needed doing.But this was different.The bond ran from my chest to somewhere far to the north, thin as silk and strong as chain. Every heartbeat tugged it. Every mile it hurt. It did not feel like a thread. It felt like a hook set in my ribs, and something very far away was pulling steadily on the line.Vivienne.Go, my wolf growled. Faster.I leaned over my horse's neck and drove my heels into his flanks."Alpha!" Beta Ketra shouted behind me. "Slow! We cannot keep this pace!""Then do not!""The horses will drop!""Then I will run!"I heard her swear in Redfang, a long, vivid stream of words I did not understand. Then the hoofbeats behind me quickened.We rode all day.The road north climbed through bare hills and rocky passes, with a cold wind o

The Silver Citadel rose out of the mountains like a dream.I saw it from three miles away, from the lip of a high pass, as the sun came up. A great white fortress, built in terraces up the side of a cliff, with a hundred slender towers and a hundred long banners streaming in the wind. Silver light poured off its walls. Mist drifted around its base like a skirt.It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.It was also the loneliest.Lucian rode beside me on a white horse, quiet and courteous, as he had been for the last three days. He did not bother me. He did not speak unless spoken to. He fed me and my horse, and set a guard outside my tent each night, and left me alone with my thoughts.It was worse than cruelty. It was kindness."You are staring," he said."It is large.""It is." His voice was dry. "It was built by a man who liked large things. I have lived there all my life and I still get lost.""Is it always so cold?""Only when my father is home."I looked at him sharply. H

"You are a fool," Ysolde hissed.They had given me an hour to prepare. I spent it in a small anteroom behind the Great Hall, a bare stone chamber with a single bench, a basin of water, and one narrow window. The old woman had slipped in through a servants' door, limping, her silver eyes blazing."I could not refuse," I said."You could have run.""Where?""Anywhere." She gripped my arms. "Selene. Listen to me. I have lived for ninety-one years. I have served this Court for seventy of them. I know what the Great Staff is.""A symbol.""It is a cage."I went still."Every Alpha in the north," Ysolde said, in a low, fierce whisper, "swears an oath on a staff. That staff is cut from a branch of the Great Staff, the original, in the hall. The oath is not a promise. It is a binding. It reaches down into the blood. It makes a wolf obey the one who holds the staff.""I know. I broke one.""You broke a branch. A copy." Her old face twisted. "The Great Staff is the root. If it is broken, every

We ran.Down a hundred stairs, through a servants' passage, along a gallery of black windows with the wind howling through the glass. Lucian ran ahead with the lantern. Ysolde was waiting for us at the bottom, leaning on her stick, her silver eyes blazing."Quickly," she snapped. "They are bringing him to the hall.""Where are the others?""Held. Not yet harmed. The Chancellor wants the Alpha first, as an example.""We have to stop it.""We will." She turned and pointed her stick down a dim corridor. "This way. I know a path the guards forgot."We followed her.She led us through a series of narrow stone passages, so old that the walls were coated with moss and the ceiling dripped. We came out into the shadows behind a tall pillar at the back of the Great Hall.The bell tolled again. Third time.The Hall was full again. Hundreds of Alphas and elders stood in rows, silent and gray. Torches burned on every pillar. A low scaffold had been raised in the center of the floor, where the Grea