Chapter 7: The Vote

They voted at noon in the courtyard, where Tobias had put his hands on me the day before.

The dirt had been raked over the place, and it was still a different color.

Two hundred wolves stood in a ring.

My father stood on the porch steps with the key on his chest and Sabine at his side.

I stood in the middle of the ring alone.

The old steward read the question off a card.

"Shall the Alpha's daughter be kept in the Moon Hall for her own safety and the pack's, until the Alpha judges her fit?"

"Hands for aye."

A forest of hands went up.

I looked at faces I had known all my life.

The woman who had slapped me at ten for touching her child's toy had her hand up high.

The young hunter who had once offered me his coat had his hand up too.

He had gone through the room for that coat, and he would not look at me.

The steward counted.

It took a long time.

"One hundred and ninety-one for."

"Hands against."

For a breath no one moved.

Then a thin arm in a flannel sleeve went up on the far side of the ring.

June stood with her chin lifted and her face red to the ears, and every head in the courtyard turned to look at her.

"One against," the steward said, and a small mean laugh ran around the ring.

"June, put your arm down," Sabine said, in the voice of a mother whose daughter had embarrassed her at church.

"No," June said.

She did not lower it.

I could have cried, and I did not.

"Motion carried," the steward said. "The Alpha's daughter will be confined to the Moon Hall."

"Wait," I said.

I stepped to the center of the ring and raised my chin.

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