The Alpha King's Heart novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Ring
They drew the ring around the whipping stage at dawn.
Strake's wolves cut the circle in the dirt with a chain, forty paces across.
Every wolf in the sector came to stand behind it, and every human in the district was ordered to watch.
They stood in two kinds of clothes, gray and silk, and for once they stood together.
The King came out of the Keep car at the last minute.
His ribs were bound under his shirt, and I could tell by the way he got out that every step hurt.
He walked to where I stood at the edge of the ring.
"You don't have to be here," he said.
"I know."
"If it goes badly, take your family and go. The captain has a truck waiting."
"If it goes badly, I'll be standing here," I said.
"Macy."
"You said I could ask. I'm asking you to win."
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he took off the black coat and held it open.
It was the coat from the stage, with the silver crest inside the collar.
I turned my back, and he put it over my shoulders.
It was warm, and it smelled of cut grass.
I pulled it closed over the old white scars and turned the collar back so the whole town could see the crest.
Strake's wolves went quiet.
"Wear it," the King said, "and they'll know whose you are."
"I know whose I am."
He kissed my forehead, once, fast, and walked into the ring.
I did not look away from his back.
Strake's second stepped in from the other side.
He was the thin beta with the pale eyes, and he shed his shirt without taking his gaze off me.
"The challenge is between the King and the Alpha of Harrow Creek," the old gray-maned wolf called, from a chair at the ring's edge. "The Alpha may send a second. The King may refuse."
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