Chapter 21: Needs Me For What

Nobody in the meadow spoke.

The split in the stone ticked once, and a handful of grit fell into the grass.

An old woman in the front of the ring stepped forward on a cane.

She was the eldest of the council, and I had never heard her say more than a greeting.

"That stone has stood nine hundred years," she said. "It has cracked once. The day the first moon-blooded wolf closed a bond at it."

The ring began to whisper.

I took my hand off the rock.

"I'm a moon-blooded wolf," I said, and heard my own voice carry. "I found that out in Norway, from a stranger. Not from my family."

I turned and looked at the Alpha.

"You knew."

"Child, you are tired," he said.

"You knew, because you gave me a seat at your table every Sunday for five years, and you watched your son hold my hand before every run."

"That is slander."

"Is it?"

Alexander spoke from the grass.

He had not stood. He was kneeling with his hands flat on the ground, and his voice was cracked and low.

"Father," he said. "I'm not asking her. I'm asking you."

"Alexander, be silent."

"Did you know?"

"Be silent."

"I held her hand," Alexander said, "and I thought it was me. I thought it was me, and you let me think it."

The Alpha's mouth moved.

He did not say no.

The ring saw it. I heard it in their breathing.

I turned to my mother.

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