Chapter 17: Worth More Quiet

Cassandra's POV

The Pack Hall at noon was quieter than it had been on Sunday.

The benches were full, and no one ate or whispered.

The Beta, Lorna and Braden stood in a row before the council table.

I sat in the front row beside Hattie, and Conall stood at the end of the council table as the Alpha.

The old chair spoke first.

"This is a hearing, not a trial," she said. "Pack law gives us one question."

"Did anyone in this household dose a wolf?"

"The healer will answer first."

The healer stood up with a tin in her hands.

It was Lorna's tin, with the faded label and the pressed flower.

I knew it by its smell from forty feet away.

"It is monkshood, dried and cut with lemon balm," the healer said. "Enough in each cup to dull a nose."

"The jars at the Haskell house are labeled with her initials, and the amounts match a ledger."

"A wolf who drank it daily for five years would not shift."

"And a wolf like that, if she lived," said the chair, "would be what, healer?"

"Moon-blood, ma'am. We all saw."

The room stirred.

Lorna was crying.

She cried well, with her chin up and her hand pressed to her chest.

"It's an old recipe," she said. "I made it for Cassandra because she couldn't sleep."

"I swear before the pack, I loved that girl."

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