Chapter 7: Walking the Stage

Graduation was held on the football field, in the heat, with two hundred wolves in folding chairs.

My mother sat in the third row in her good green dress. She had been crying since the bus pulled in.

"Stop," I told her, at the edge of the field. "You'll ruin your makeup."

"I don't wear makeup."

"Then you'll ruin your face."

She laughed, and it turned into a sob, and she held my cheeks in both hands.

"After tonight," she said. "Everything. I promise."

"I know, Mom."

She had gone back into the kitchen the day after Garrick questioned her.

She made biscuits with her jaw set and did not tell me what he said.

I had not asked.

I took my seat in the folding chair with the rest of the seniors.

Garrick Ransom sat in the first row of the pack.

Melody's father, the beta, sat on his left.

Melody sat in the front row of the graduates with her chin up.

Cade was three seats from me.

He had come back to school that morning.

He sat with his spine very straight and did not look at me once.

That was exactly the rule I had made.

It still made my chest hurt.

The principal read the names in order.

Melody went up, and the pack applauded the beta's daughter.

She smiled out at them, sure of her crown.

"Orla Harrow," the principal said.

I stood.

I walked up the aisle between the chairs.

My wolf walked inside me, quiet and upright.

I felt the pack watching me.

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