Chapter 23: The Seat

I looked at the wolves kneeling in the dirt, and I said, "No."

The Great Elder lifted his head.

"Luna?"

"I won't take the seat."

A sound went through the ring, half a gasp and half a groan.

"You are the only one the Goddess chose," a man shouted from the back. "Without a Luna, we have no shield."

I let him finish.

"I was your Luna for twenty-five years," I said. "And a girl starved under your feast hall floor."

"You all ate at that table."

Nobody moved.

"I will not sit in the chair where my daughter was starved. I will not be Luna of a pack that laughed."

The man at the back sat down.

"You will not be left with nothing," I said. "The Elders hold the hall until midsummer. The Great Elder speaks for you."

The Great Elder bowed his head.

"The three Alphas will watch a vote for your next Alpha, and every wolf in this ring will cast it, women first."

The thin gray woman from the lavender house put her hand to her mouth.

"And what do you take?" the old Alpha asked mildly.

"The mountain."

"The pillar is rubble."

"Then I'll build another," I said.

"The Goddess's keeping goes with the light in me, and I will keep it."

"Offerings will be given freely, by any wolf who wants to climb and kneel. Never again by a Luna's life."

The Great Elder knelt on one knee, slowly, his bound arm held to his chest.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Pack Killed My Daughter While I Served the Moon Goddess from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.