Chapter 24: Queen

I stood in the torchlight with three hundred wolves looking at me, and I did not know what to say.

Broderick stood at the head of the hall, an ordinary man now in a ruined suit.

No one looked at him.

He turned and walked down the center aisle by himself, and the crowd opened in front of him and closed again behind.

The doors shut on him without a sound.

I felt nothing at all, and it surprised me how clean that was.

"Keira," said the old elder softly. "The seat follows you. You named a mate, but the seat is yours to give."

I looked at Orson.

He stood at my left shoulder with his hand pressed to his side, and he had not said a word since the Ring.

"I don't want to be handed a pack," I said, to the room. "I've been handed to people my whole life."

Nobody spoke.

"Davenant has no Alpha tonight. The charter says I can name one. I'd rather you told me who you want."

A murmur went around the hall.

Then Derrick crossed the floor in front of me and went down on one knee.

I opened my mouth to tell him to get up.

Behind him, a woman from the accounting floor knelt.

I knew her.

She had once held a door for me and asked me nothing at all.

Then a young man from the security desk knelt.

A gray-haired wolf I had sat beside in a hundred meetings went down next.

Then the whole staircase followed, row after row, until the entire hall was bowed.

Nobody had commanded it.

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