Chapter 14: The Run

"Tonight," Lark said. "Tonight tonight."

"There's no storm," said one of the twins.

Peyton's father had moved the Run a night early so we'd have no afternoon to get ready.

He hadn't counted on the laundry.

At four the twins walked down the river path with two laundry bags each.

At four I spilled a full pot of tea down the dining hall steps in front of Peyton, and everybody looked at that instead.

At five the twins came back with empty bags and rope burns on their hands.

"Tied off at the weir," one whispered. "Both banks. It's under the water line. You can't see it unless you know."

At ten the whole pack stood at the edge of the gym field.

Twenty omegas on the white line, in sneakers and sweatshirts.

Omegas run on two legs. That's the tradition. The hunters run on four.

Peyton's father held a stopwatch on a gold chain.

"Ten minutes' start," he said. "Anyone caught before the river belongs to the one who caught them, till dawn."

"And by bylaw thirty-one," he said, "our Alpha runs at his omega's shoulder."

Cade walked out onto the line beside me.

He pulled his shirt over his head, and the crowd whistled, and then he wasn't a man anymore.

The wolf beside me was huge and dark gray, with a silver blaze down his throat.

He looked at me with gold eyes.

"Ready," said Peyton's father.

Lark took my hand. Hers was ice.

"Go."

We went.

We broke for the creek.

Twenty omegas hit the water in a line and turned downstream, ankle-deep, holding each other's sleeves.

Cade ran on the bank above me, keeping pace, silent.

Behind us, a long way back, I heard the horn.

Then thirty wolves howling, casting for us at the tree line.

Sooner or later one of them would think of the creek.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Oops, You Bullied the Alpha Queen from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.