My Pack Cut Me Off, So I Reported to the Lycan King novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Oath

Sworn in as a Warden, Brinley hears voices in her head for the first time in a year. She finds a family on the Hollow floor and learns who is on the Council guest list.

"Good. You came."

The voice from the night before was still in my head when I woke, a man's voice, low and certain.

I asked Dessa whose it was, and she only said, "Eat something first."

In the morning she walked me down to a round room with no windows.

There was a stone bowl in the middle of the floor, and a silver crescent was set into the rim.

Eleven Wardens stood in a ring around it with their arms folded.

"They came to watch," Dessa said. "They'll deny it later."

"We came for the cake," said the big man who had passed me the butter.

"There's no cake."

"There's always cake after," he said. "That's the tradition."

Ansel stood on the far side of the bowl in the same black suit, with his hands in his pockets.

He didn't look at me when I came in, and I noticed that he was trying not to.

"Say your name, Rowe," Dessa said.

"Brinley Rowe."

I had never said it out loud that way.

It was my mother's name, and for a second the room swam.

"Hand on the stone," Dessa said. "Say the oath after me. It's short, because nobody here likes long speeches."

I put my palm on the silver crescent.

It was warm, and it hummed against my skin.

"I answer to the Crown and to no pack," Dessa said.

"I answer to the Crown and to no pack," I said.

"I keep the peace between wolves who would rather not."

I repeated it, and somebody in the ring snorted.

"I stand where I'm put, and I go where I'm sent."

"And I'm never alone while I wear the crescent."

My voice cracked on the last word.

The stone flared under my hand, and the room went white.

Then the noise came.

It rushed into my head from every side at once, eleven voices talking over each other.

Somebody was complaining about the shower schedule.

Somebody else was reciting a grocery list.

Dessa said, loud and clear and inside my skull, "Her braid's crooked, and she's trying not to cry."

I stood there with my palm on the stone.

For a year the inside of my head had been empty.

Now there were people in it, and they were arguing about eggs.

I didn't make a sound.

I'm good at that now.

The tears ran down my face anyway.

The big man stepped out of the ring and stopped in front of me.

"You're allowed to cry," he said out loud. "It's in the handbook. Page three."

"There's no handbook."

"There is now. I wrote it. Dessa, what's the fine for crying?"

"One cup of the bad coffee," Dessa said.

I laughed so hard that the tears turned into the other kind.

Someone handed me a cloth.

Someone else said, through the link, "Don't tell her about the cake," and I heard the whole Hollow shush them at once.

When I looked up, Ansel had finally looked at me.

He kept his face still, but his jaw was hard.

I had the strange feeling that he had heard every word of that noise and every one of those tears.

Then his voice reached me through the crescent, steady and quiet, meant only for me.

"Door duty at nine," he said. "The lobby. Dessa will walk you through it."

"Yes, sir," I said out loud.

"Not sir."

"Yes, Ansel."

A few Wardens made a noise in their throats.

"Nobody says his name," the big man whispered.

"I'm not nobody," I said. "I'm a Warden."

"She's been here a day," Dessa said, delighted. "I love her."

After the cake, which turned out to be a grocery store sheet cake with my name misspelled on it, Dessa took me to the lobby.

It was a glass hall two stories tall with a long black desk at the front.

A guard stood behind the desk with a tablet and a mug.

"This is the door," Dessa said. "Two Wardens, four hours a shift. You check every wolf that comes through, you smell for trouble, and you smile at the ones who can't smell it."

"What do I check them against?"

"The guest list for the Council."

The guard turned his tablet around so I could read it.

The Alphas were listed by territory, with a tick next to each name as they confirmed.

I read down it and my stomach dropped.

Silver Creek, Alpha Gregory Ludlow, Luna Hester Ludlow, and five sons.

Confirmed, arriving in nine days.

Right under it was another name.

Blood Ridge, Alpha Colter, Brant Colter, and Mate.

The space after "and" was blank, because Blood Ridge had not yet sent in her name.

"Something wrong?" Dessa asked.

I put the tablet down very carefully.

"No," I said. "Put me on the door."

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