Chapter 14: What Redfern Brought

I picked up the ring and it was warm.

Darek woke while I was holding it.

He looked at my palm for a long moment.

"I watched the elder close that book over it," I said. "I saw the cover come down."

"Rings go home," he said.

"Not to me. I decided where it stays."

"Maybe it decided too."

I put it in my skirt pocket, where I could feel it against my leg.

I was still buttoning my blouse when a sentry knocked on the door.

"Alpha," he said. "Redfern's on the north road. Forty wolves, and trucks behind them."

Darek was in his boots before I had finished the sentence.

We reached the gate at a run.

Jarrett had not moved from the dust.

His shirt was filthy, and he had not slept.

Forty Redfern wolves stood in a line across the road beyond him, in the gray pickup lights.

The Redfern Alpha stepped out of the middle truck.

He looked like a man who had been awake all night and meant to stay that way.

Imogen climbed down after him.

She had changed out of the white gown and wore a pale blue dress and a coat, and her hair was perfect.

Her ring finger was bare.

"Alpha Wardell," the Redfern Alpha said. "You are on your side of the line, and I am on mine, so I will say this plainly."

"Say it," Darek said.

"Stillwater's elder found the vow book empty at dawn. The Brandis ring is gone."

The wolves behind him shifted.

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