The Rejected Luna's Revenge novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Nobody Kneels
"Stand up," Demelza said.
Nobody did.
The Brocklehurst Beta stayed on one knee in the grass with his grey beard on his chest, and a hundred wolves stayed down behind him.
"We have no Alpha," he said. "You beat the one we had, and you spared him. We'd follow that."
"Get up. All of you."
"Miss MacShane..."
"I was kept in a grey dress for a year by a man everyone in this pack knelt to." Her voice rang off the stones. "Nobody kneels to me. Get up."
The cook got up first, with a grunt, one hand on her knee.
Then the boy.
Then the rest came up in a slow rustling wave, until a hundred and six wolves stood on the north slope looking at her.
"I'll lead it," Demelza said. "On terms."
The Beta wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Name them."
"First. Every wolf here chooses. If you want to stay, you stay. If you want to go to another pack, you go, with a letter from me and your pension."
"There's no pension," said the old guard with the white moustache. "There's a flour sack."
"Then I'll count what's on the sack and pay it out of the Ridge." She looked along the slope. "Second. The Hall is a house, not a throne. The seat has no chair. Anyone can bring a quarrel to the table, and I answer it in front of everybody."
A low murmur went through the crowd, warm and surprised.
"Third. No wolf is ever told what they're strong enough to hear."
She said it to the Beta, and she watched him take it.
"Done," he said.
"Anyone who disagrees can say so now."
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