All Chapters of My Husband’s Brother Is My Mate?!: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

"Sit, child," Corvin said. "You look unwell."I did not sit. I stayed on my knees on the cold stone, the tin box clutched against my chest, and watched him move.He took his time. He lit a second lamp on the nearest shelf with a long, slow match, and the archive swelled with warm gold light. Shadows crept back to the corners. He set his cane against a pillar. Then he lowered himself onto a stool across from me, folded his gloved hands, and smiled.He looked like a kind old grandfather at a fireside."You are wondering," he said, "how long I have waited.""Thirty years," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "Since they cast you out.""Thirty-one." He sounded almost fond. "I was sixteen. I was the firstborn son of Alpha Edric. By every law of wolf-kind, the pack was mine.""But your father had a second wife.""My father had a favorite." His mouth thinned. "A pretty girl from the western hills who gave him a pretty son. He loved that boy more than the sun. The law said the eldest inherits.

(Rhys's point of view)It felt like losing a limb.That was the only way I could describe it. I crossed the ford at dawn with the sun in my eyes and my brother's sword at my hip, and the moment my horse's hooves touched the northern bank, something tore loose inside me.Not a snap. A silence.The bond had been a presence for so long, a warm, humming, constant thing at the back of my mind. Now there was nothing. A cold, empty hole where Selene had been.I nearly fell from the saddle.For an hour I rode in a daze, white-knuckled on the reins, staring at the road without seeing it. My wolf paced and whimpered inside me. Go back, he said, over and over. Go back, go back, go back.I cannot.She is hurt.She is safe. Cain will keep her safe.She is hurt.Be quiet.He would not.By the time the sun was high, I had learned to ride around the wound. To breathe past it. To pretend. I kept my eyes forward and my thoughts narrow, and I told myself I would see her again.The Redfang camp lay in a

(Cain's point of view)I had not slept in eleven years.Not truly. A man without a wolf does not dream. He closes his eyes and falls into a dark so total that he wakes feeling more tired than before. I had grown used to it. I had stopped hoping.So when I sank into the hot water of the northern springs that sixth evening, with steam curling around my shoulders and the stars coming out overhead, I did not expect anything.Then my wolf stirred.He did not speak. He did not need to. He only uncurled, slowly, like a cat in the sun, and rested his great silver head against the inside of my ribs.Rest, he seemed to say.I nearly wept.The springs lay in a hidden hollow in the northern hills, a ring of milky blue pools rimmed with white stone. The water steamed gently. The air smelled of sulfur and pine. Mother Maren had chosen it herself. The Moon's own bath, she had called it. For six days I had soaked, and walked, and eaten. For six days my wolf had grown calmer.On the seventh, I finally

"You are not hanging my Luna," Cain said. "Nor my mate."He said it quietly, in front of the entire pack.Corvin's eyes flicked from him to Vivienne, huddled in his arms, then to me. "Your mate.""Yes.""The poisoner's daughter.""My mate," Cain repeated. "And I will say this once. Until the trial, every one of them stands under my protection. If any hand is laid on them, it is laid on me." He turned slowly, and his gaze swept the courtyard. "Does anyone here wish to try?"Not a wolf moved.Corvin's jaw worked. For a long moment I thought he would give the order anyway. But every guard in the yard had shifted, just slightly, away from him. Dane and Bryn stood at the foot of the platform with drawn swords. A hundred warriors had crowded closer behind them.He smiled thinly."Of course," he said. "Until the trial."He left the dais.They cut my wrists loose. I fell into Mara's arms. She was crying and laughing and cursing all at once.We met in Maren's tower at dusk.The little room was

The whole pack came.They filled the great courtyard from wall to wall, a sea of faces in the pale morning light. Mothers held babies. Old men leaned on sticks. Children perched on their fathers' shoulders. In the colonnade, rows of elders sat on long benches, dressed in black. Guards ringed the open space, spears upright.At the center stood a raised platform. On it, two chairs. In the right-hand chair sat Corvin, wearing the Alpha's golden collar over his shoulders, his cane across his knees.In the left stood Cain.He had refused to sit. He stood in his plain black coat, hands at his sides, head high, with Vivienne beside him. Dane, Bryn, and Mara stood in a tight line behind. I stood at the front, next to Maren, my hands cold, my heart beating in my throat.I had not told him.I had looked at Cain in the gray hour before dawn, and he had smiled at me, tired and hopeful, and I had said nothing."People of Blackthorne," Corvin called. His voice rolled across the yard. "We gather to