Chapter 4: Thirty Days

The pack council met on Tuesdays at nine.

It was Tuesday.

I printed the bank report, put on my best grey jacket, and walked round the lake.

The council room was on the first floor of the pack house, above the great hall. Long table, six elders, the Alpha's chair at the head.

There was a second chair beside it now. Pink cushion.

Bethany was in it.

Wolves were already crowding the corridor. Word travels fast in a pack. Somebody had seen my face on the path.

I didn't knock.

"Morning," I said, and laid the report in front of Duncan.

He read the top line, and his ears went red.

"Mischa. This is council business."

"I'm on the council. Unless you've voted on that at breakfast too."

The eldest elder, a white-haired she-wolf with a cane, made a small noise that might have been a laugh.

"Sit, Luna," she said.

"I'll stand, thank you."

I turned the paper so the elders could read it.

"At twelve minutes past three this morning, ninety thousand pounds left our treasury. It went to Harrow Fell Land Limited."

The elders leaned in.

"Signed by our Alpha," I said, "and our new Luna. On her first day."

Bethany's bracelets went still.

Duncan stood up.

"It's a dowry gift," he said. "Her family is our family now. It's an old custom."

"It is old," said the elder with the cane. "Very old."

"It goes the other way," I said. "The bride's people pay the groom's pack. They don't help themselves to his."

A few wolves in the corridor murmured.

Duncan's hand came down flat on the table.

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