Chapter 20: The Challenge

The moon came up full and white over the pines, and I drank the healer's bottle in front of four hundred people.

It tasted like burnt licorice and old pennies.

My stomach rolled once, and I held it down.

Both packs ringed the Moon Stone, Garrick on the north side and Northlake on the south, with the torches between them.

Ash stood at the edge of the ring, on the line where the grass ended and the standing stones began.

His hands were fists, and he didn't come one step closer.

Anders stood beside him.

Across the circle, Rowan had stripped to the waist in the cold.

His tailored coat lay folded on the ground at his father's feet.

His fingernails were stained dark.

The old Alpha stood behind him in his camel coat, calm as a man at a bank.

Felicity stood at the Northlake edge with the nurse's hand under her elbow.

She was looking at me, and her lips were pressed together so hard they'd gone white.

The Moon-reader lifted her cane.

"Two have asked for the Stone's judgment on the Garrick seat," she said.

"The challenger, Rowan Thorsen, for his father's house."

"The heir, Sigrid Garrick, for her own."

"The rule is the old rule. Bare skin, bare teeth, no weapon but what the Moon gave you."

"The fight ends when one yields, or cannot stand."

She looked straight at Rowan.

"Nothing else in this ring."

"Of course," Rowan said, and smiled.

I pulled off my jacket and my boots.

I stood in the cold grass in my T-shirt and jeans, and I let my wolf come up.

It was easier than the first time.

It felt like stepping into a river I knew.

The bones shifted, the long muscles stretched, and my paws sank into the dark soil.

Four hundred people breathed in at once.

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