Chapter 7: The Test

Cassandra's POV

I came down Conall's staircase in his flannel shirt and my own jeans, with my braid half undone.

There was no way to look like anything but what I was.

Five members of the pack council stood in the front room of the Alpha house, holding their hats.

The Beta stood in the middle of them, with his hands folded in front of him, looking sorrowful.

Lorna waited by the door, and Braden was nowhere.

Every face turned to me and then, politely, away.

"I apologize for the hour," said the council chair.

She was an old woman with short white hair and a deeply lined face.

She had been on the council since before I was born.

"I wouldn't have come if it could wait. The Beta has filed a formal petition, and it concerns this young woman."

Conall came down behind me and stopped one step above.

He had pulled on jeans and nothing else.

I felt his hand come to rest at the small of my back, and I did not step away from it.

"Say it," he said.

"Alpha, you are twenty-nine," the Beta said gently. "You are eight weeks from the Thirtieth."

"And in one day, an unmated girl is seen in your truck, in your hall and now in your house."

"Yet you tell the whole pack she is nothing to you."

"I told them she wasn't my mate."

"Then she isn't," the Beta said. "Or if she is, I'd like it proved."

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