Chapter 9: At the Gate

I did not let anyone carry me.

I got off the table with Lyra in my arms and a blanket around my shoulders, and my legs shook, and I walked.

"Elora, you gave birth an hour ago," Hester said.

"Three hours."

"That's worse. Sit down."

"Give Lyra to Hester," Kellan said quietly. "Please."

I looked at him.

"I'm going to that gate."

"I know." He touched the blanket at my shoulder. "And I'm going with you. But you won't take her."

I hated that he was right.

I kissed Lyra's forehead, damp and warm, and put her in Hester's arms.

"Hide her," I said. "The cellar. If a single Stonehollow wolf gets past the wall, you take her out the back and run."

Hester's freckled face was fierce.

"They'll have to kill me first."

"Then don't let them."

"I won't."

The north gate of Ashfall was a pair of iron-banded timbers set in a stone wall, with a catwalk above.

Kellan's wolves lined it, two hundred strong, already in their half-shifts, eyes gleaming.

On the other side, in the pale dawn, stood Stonehollow.

I'd walked among those faces for three years.

I knew the baker's wife, and the old man from the porch, and the boy whose arm I'd set.

They stood in rows with their heads down.

In front stood Dorian.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Alpha Who Let His Luna Die from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.