Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 21 of 48

Chapter 21: Sentence

Nora's POV

The pack heard it all that morning, with the doors open and the windows up so that nobody outside would miss a word.

Ronan read the page aloud twice.

Then he sat down in his chair.

"The pack will say what's owed," he said, when the room was quiet. "Anyone who wants to speak, speak."

The first to stand was an old widow who had once told me to wipe my feet.

She leaned on her cane and pointed it at Celia.

"Last October you cut our wood," she said. "You told the council we had enough."

"We burned our own chairs to stay warm."

"I never..." Celia began.

"Sit down, Celia," the widow said, and Celia sat.

A kitchen wolf went next, a girl of fifteen with her hands twisted in her apron.

"She broke my wrist for dropping a tray," she said in a very small voice.

"Then she said I'd imagined it."

Another stood, and another.

Nobody shouted.

They said it plainly, one after another, and Celia's face went slowly gray as the list grew.

I sat in the Luna's chair with the ring on my hand, and I listened to every word.

I had grown up in her kitchen.

I hadn't known how many of us there were.

When it ended, the elders talked among themselves for a long time.

The oldest of them rose.

"Exile," he said. "She is never to cross the pack line again, and her name is struck from the council book."

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