Chapter 16: Open the Door

My father did not move.

"Let him come," he said at last, flat and cold. "Let the whole pack come down to the Moon Hall and watch the girl fail."

He turned his back on me, and the crowd turned with him.

They marched the mile back to the pack house in a silent, heavy line, and I walked at the end of it with Elias's hand on my arm.

The Moon Hall was lit with torches.

Two hundred wolves crowded down the stairs and filled the corridor, with Tobias in his collar at the front and Sabine at my father's shoulder.

Declan stopped in front of the oak door.

He lifted the iron chain at his neck and held the key in his fist.

"Open it yourself, then," I said. "Open it, and I'll be quiet."

"I will not. You are an unfit daughter and a thief. I am the Alpha of this pack, and it is mine."

"You are Alpha because of me."

The corridor went still.

"The wall says it. You are strong because I live inside your border. Every wolf here is strong because of me, and you let them spit on me for it."

"Silence her," Sabine said softly.

Nobody moved.

"I challenge you for the key," I said.

The word went up the stairs, wolf to wolf, and I heard it break at the top.

A challenge in front of the pack cannot be refused, and my father knew it better than anyone.

He smiled at me, and it was the first real smile I had seen on his face in twenty-four years.

"You haven't shifted in six years. Your wolf is a cub."

"Then it will be quick."

The pack cleared a space in the corridor, and I pulled my shirt over my head.

I heard a few of them gasp, and I did not care.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Everyone Who Entered the Forbidden Room Wanted Me Dead from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.