Chapter 41: The Rope

Ewan did not yield.

The grey jaws shut on his shoulder, and the black wolf's front legs buckled.

He went down on one knee in the dirt.

The sound he made was not a yield.

It was a breath through his teeth.

Then he put his weight on the leg again and began to lift.

Hamish bore down on him.

The whole ring was shouting.

The Keep's wolves behind me were shouting, and the Greywater wolves across the dirt shouted back.

The Nine had half risen from their chairs.

I was holding the rope so hard the hemp had cut my palms.

I had promised him.

I had said, I stay outside, because he asked me to, and I had meant it.

I looked at him over the grey wolf's back.

His head was turned toward me, with his green eyes open and his lip pulled back off his teeth.

He did not growl at me.

He did not tell me to stay.

He looked at me for the length of one breath.

I knew what he was doing.

He was letting me choose.

"Thea," Brigid said. "Go."

I stepped over the rope.

The Elder had said it plainly to the whole ring: any wolf bound to a combatant by mate-claim may cross.

Nobody stopped me.

The change came as I ran.

The silver came up through my skin and my hands went to paws, and I did not slow down.

The ground was packed hard under my feet.

The moon lit the ring so brightly I could see every hair on the grey wolf's back.

I hit him from the side, low, just behind the ribs.

He grunted and let go.

Ewan's shoulder came free in a spray of dark blood, and he swayed and did not fall.

Hamish whirled on me.

His light brown eyes, which had been so calm, were wide.

For the first time I saw him surprised.

I did not have my fire.

The wards had it, and my paws stayed dark.

I had my teeth and my speed and eighteen years of being underestimated, and I used all of it.

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