Chapter 10: The Crowd

I woke at dawn with a heavy arm across my waist and a beard against my shoulder.

For one long, warm moment I did not think of anything at all.

"You snore," Osian murmured into my hair.

"I do not."

"Like a very small saw."

I elbowed him, and he caught my elbow and kissed it, and the day nearly ended there.

Then the courtyard bell began to ring.

It was not a feast bell.

It rang in short hard strokes, the way a bell rings for a fire.

I was dressed before he found his boots.

The courtyard was full.

Two hundred of the pack stood in their grey jackets in the thin morning light.

On the top step of the hall, facing them, stood Sabra.

She had changed into a white gown with her hair loose, and she was weeping.

She looked like a saint on a church window.

"My husband is dying," she said, and her voice carried to every wall.

"You've all seen it. He has suffered for five years, and last night he nearly died in my arms."

A murmur ran through the crowd.

"Do you know what changed?" Sabra said.

"A stranger came through our gates. Nobody knows who she is or where she comes from."

"She put her hands on the King, and now my husband bleeds."

She pointed at me.

Two hundred faces turned.

"She is a witch," said Sabra. "She has cursed the Alpha."

Someone at the back shouted, and then somebody else did.

A big man in a grey jacket took a step forward, and another beside him.

I felt Osian move at my back, and I put out a hand without turning.

"Wait."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Rejected, Replaced and Forgotten from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.