Chapter 12: The Word

Rhiannon's POV

I woke tied to the Luna's chair.

The sack was gone from my head, and the cord around my wrists was rough and tight.

I was in the great hall, and every lamp in it was lit.

Gwen sat beside me in the next chair with a gag in her mouth and her eyes blazing.

The hall was filling.

Wolves came in at the side doors by twos and threes, and stopped when they saw me.

The war horn had sounded for assembly, and nobody could refuse the horn.

At the head table, Cade lay stretched out on a long board with a blanket under his head.

His eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling.

Odette stood over him in a pale gown, with a silver cup in one hand and a knife in the other.

She smiled when she saw me awake.

"There you are," she said, brightly. "Good. I didn't want to start without you, Rhi."

"Untie me," I said.

"In a moment."

"Where is the war chest, Odette?"

"Safe."

She turned to the pack, and her voice went warm and sorrowful.

"Wolves of Crescent Moon," she said. "Our Alpha is dying. The Luna who abandoned him has come back, and she has agreed to heal him with her blood."

"She has agreed," I said loudly, "to nothing."

Odette did not look at me.

"It is the old law," she said. "A Luna's blood restores her mate. It always has."

"I'm not his mate."

"The pack remembers the rite. You all saw how strong the Alpha was when she sat up with him."

A murmur went around the hall, and some of the wolves nodded.

She did not know why the rite worked.

She only knew that it had, and that it had stopped when I walked out.

"She will give her blood freely," said Odette, "or her friend will pay for it."

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