Chapter 21: Two Seats

Teagan's POV

"I won't take it," Conall said.

He was standing in a quilt in the ruins of the breakfast hall, with blood running down his neck.

Every wolf in Silver Ridge was looking at him.

"You are the first heir," said the elder.

"I was."

"Your father is in cuffs. You are the only grown son with the right."

"I was the right hand of the man who stole my daughter," Conall said. "I made his tea."

"I kept his secrets and I didn't ask what they were. I don't want a seat he sat in."

"Then Devon."

"No, ma'am," said Devon.

He had pulled on someone's coat.

He was still barefoot, with the cut over his eye bleeding into it.

He held Roz's loud pup against his shoulder with both big hands.

She had stopped crying to chew on his collar.

"I left my post that day," he said. "I hung up on my wife while she bled."

"I'll command the border for as long as the pack lets me. That's all I'm worth."

"The pack needs an Alpha, boy."

"Then pick someone who didn't hang up."

The hall rumbled.

The elder looked down the long horseshoe of tables, at the patrol wolves and the mothers by the door.

Then she looked at me.

She had a way of looking that went right through a person's coat.

"I am ninety-one," she said. "I have ruled this pack alone for three days at a time, and I will not do it again."

"Elder," said Conall.

"The law says a council may name any wolf of strength, of either sex."

"The wolf must have stood in front of the pack and told it the truth."

She raised her cane.

"Who has stood in front of this pack this week and told it the truth?"

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