Alle Kapitel von HER ARRANGED MARRIAGE : Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

Chapter 012CECILIA I could not sit still.I had been pacing the length of the chamber for ten minutes and Darcy had been sitting on the small sofa near the window watching me do it without saying a word. She had the patience of someone who had known me long enough to understand that interrupting before I was ready to talk made things worse, not better.I stopped abruptly and turned to her. "Can you imagine it?""Imagine what specifically?""Those elders." I started moving again. "Sitting there at that table with their folded hands and their serious faces, telling Cassian to test my efficiency. Test it. Like I am some junior warrior who just walked in off the street and asked for a position."Darcy straightened slightly. "You are joking.""I am so serious right now I could scream." I pressed both hands to my forehead and kept pacing. "They sat there and told him I was a stranger. That I was not trustworthy. That they had no idea who I was and they were not about to hand me access to

Chapter 014CASSIAN Rogues at the border.The words landed in my chest like something cold. Of all the things Grey could have brought to me tonight, that was the one I could least afford. I kept my face even. "Gather your personal troops and meet me at the gate in ten minutes."Grey nodded and moved immediately.I pushed through the council room door and walked straight into Cecilia.She stumbled back a half step and caught herself, and I caught her arm on instinct before releasing it just as fast. She looked up at me with those grey-green eyes and read my face the way she always did, quickly and thoroughly, like she was pulling information I had not offered."What is going on?" she asked.I looked at her for a moment. I was not sure how long she had been standing outside that door or how much she had heard through it."Were you listening to that conversation?""I just walked out of the meeting. I was in the corridor." She frowned. "What is happening?"I moved past her.She followed

Chapter 016Two Out of ThreeCECILIA"Stop crying." Darcy's voice was firm but not unkind. "You knew something like this was coming. Crying over it is not going to change anything."She was right. I hated that she was always right.I wiped my face with the back of my hand and sat up straighter on the floor. My back was throbbing from the logs and the running and everything my body had been put through that morning, a deep aching soreness that had settled into my spine and shoulders and was not planning to leave anytime soon.Darcy set a plate of food in front of me.I pushed it away."Cecilia—""I am not hungry."She looked at me for a moment and then took the plate back without arguing.We sat in silence for a while. Outside the window the pack was going about its afternoon like nothing had happened in that courtyard, like I had not stood in front of all of them and been stripped down to nothing in ten seconds flat.A knock at the door broke the quiet.Darcy got up and opened it. I

Chapter 018CECILIAI woke up before him.That had never happened before. Every morning since we arrived, he was already up and moving before I opened my eyes, already dressed, already somewhere else in the packhouse doing whatever Alphas did before the rest of the world caught up with them.But this morning he was still there still asleep and right beside me.I lay still for a moment, watching the ceiling, telling myself to get up. My body did not listen. Slowly, against my better judgement, I turned my head.Oh.He was lying on his back with one arm thrown above his head, chest rising and falling in the slow steady rhythm of deep sleep. His long dark hair was loose and tangled, strands of it scattered across his face, curling slightly at the ends, and without the guard he wore every waking hour his features were completely open and soft in a way I had never seen them.He looks young.That was the thought that hit me first and I did not know what to do with it. In every room, in ever

Chapter 020CECILIALila was already pulling out the chair beside me when I looked up.I glanced at Cecilia across the table. Her face was unreadable but her jaw had gone slightly tight and she was looking at Lila with the particular kind of stillness she used when she was thinking something she had decided not to say out loud."Not at all." I kept my voice even. "We just came back from sparring."Cecilia picked up her fork and said nothing.Lila turned to her with a warm smile. "You look well, Cecilia. The pack suits you.""When are you returning to Greenville?" Cecilia asked. Not unkindly exactly, but directly enough that there was no missing the point. "Father should not be the only one at the pack.""He has the elders and the warriors." Lila waved her hand lightly. "He is perfectly fine. I just want to give my official appreciation to the pack before I leave. It would be rude not to."She turned to me. "How would I go about doing that, Cassian?""I have a council meeting this morn