Chapter 15: The Ring

The barn went so quiet that I heard Milo swallow.

"No?" the old man said.

"I sponsored her petition," Dalton said. "I did not buy her, and I do not own her fights."

"Then she forfeits."

"Then ask her."

Dalton did not look at me when he said it.

He kept his eyes on the old man, and his hands hung at his sides, and I saw the muscle jump along his jaw.

He wanted to say yes more than he had ever wanted anything.

I saw it in how hard he was holding still.

The old man laughed.

"She hasn't shifted in six years, boy. She'll be a lamb."

"Maybe," Dalton said. "It's still her choice."

I put my hand on Polly's head.

"Take the twins to the back, please," I said to the nanny.

Imogen crouched and took Milo's shoulders.

"I've got them," she said.

"Mama?" Polly said.

"I'm coming right back."

I walked to the center of the barn and stood on the stone.

"I accept the challenge," I said. "The seat of the Alder Creek Alpha, against my children and my mother's name. Here or in the yard."

The eldest elder shut her eyes.

"Challenge is accepted," she said. "In the yard. To yield, or to be unable."

The yard behind the barn was a ring of trampled dirt under floodlights, with the pack packed around its edge.

The old man took off his coat and his shirt.

He was sixty-two, and he was broad and heavy through the chest.

I took off my sweater and my jeans and gave them to Dalton, and he took them without a word.

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