Chapter 16: The Claim

Calla's POV

Two hundred Redfall wolves had come over the ridge, and Dunstan Westerfield sent word down the valley that he would not leave without a Gathering.

Darian read the message on the porch with his shirt half buttoned, and he said the elders would have it at sundown, on Carraway ground.

I washed the charcoal off my jaw, and Joan lent me a clean grey dress through her bedroom door.

The Gathering was held on the meadow below the pack house, inside a ring of forty torches.

Carraway wolves stood on the east side and Redfall wolves on the west, with the grass between them trampled flat.

Three elders sat on a log bench at the head of it.

I stood at the edge of the torchlight in a clean grey dress of Joan's, with my hair braided tight.

For the first time that week my hands were completely clear of hives.

Mack stood at my left with a folder under his arm.

Darian stood at my right.

He had not let go of my hand since the porch.

Every wolf in the meadow had noticed, and none of them said so.

"You can still say no to any of this," Darian said under his breath.

"I know."

"I mean it. If you want to walk back inside, I'll stand here alone."

"I know you would." I squeezed his hand. "Go."

He let go.

He walked into the middle of the ring, where the grass was flat, and turned to face both packs.

Dunstan, at the elders' left hand, had begun to rise.

"Alpha Westerfield," the oldest elder said. "You will wait. The Alpha of this house has the floor."

Dunstan sat down again, smiling.

Darian took a long breath.

"I'm not going to claim anyone tonight," he said.

A murmur ran around the ring.

"I'm going to tell you what I did first. A week ago I promised Calla I had something to say, and I forgot her within the hour."

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Mate Hated Me, So I Went Home to the Humans, but His Wolf Followed from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.