Chapter 8: Her Own Signature

The hall waited.

Emmett Crane held out a pen to me with a courteous little bow.

"Whenever you're ready, my dear."

The old Alpha of the northern pack was still leaning forward in his chair.

I did not take the pen.

I put my hand on the top page of the stack instead, and slid it free.

"May I read one first?" I asked.

My voice came out thin and hoarse.

It carried anyway.

"Of course," Emmett said, a hair too quickly. "Though I'm not sure what you hope to find."

I held the page up in front of my hood.

It was a printed form, with a date at the top and a column of checked boxes down the side.

Under the boxes, a line of typed text.

I read it aloud.

"Subject took her morning dose without resistance. Subject thanked staff. Subject expressed understanding that treatment is in her interest."

I lowered the page.

"I never thanked anybody," I said. "Not once."

A wolf near the back coughed.

At the bottom of the page, over the line marked SIGNATURE, was a name.

*Wynne Larkin.*

It was small and neat and tilted to the right.

Beautiful handwriting.

"That is my signature," I said, loud enough for the walls. "According to this."

"It is," Emmett said. "Naturally it is."

"Then I'll sign the Accord the same way."

I took the pen.

Bram's eyes were on me.

So were the eyes of every Alpha in the arc.

I bent over the Luna Accord and, in the empty space at the foot of the page, I wrote my name.

It took a long time.

My fingers would not straighten around the pen, and the nib skated sideways, and the letters slid downhill.

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