Chapter 21: The Ring

Conrad's POV

The keeper struck the floor with his staff.

"The ring is claimed. Alpha Hartwell, you will answer the charge, or you will answer it in blood. Release the witness."

Roderick Hartwell did not let go of Linnea.

I saw his fingers whiten on her sleeve.

I saw her look at me.

She did not beg, and she did not call my name.

She only looked, steady and grey-eyed.

"Alpha," the keeper said again, sharply. "The law."

Roderick shoved her away from him, hard.

She stumbled and caught herself on the old woman's stick.

"I answer in the ring," he said. "I'll make the boy a corpse and the girl an orphan twice."

He stripped off his black jacket and dropped it.

His enforcers drew back to the wall.

I took off my coat and handed it to the nearest wolf of mine.

The wound in my side had closed to a pink seam five days ago, and I put my hand over it and felt the skin tighten.

"Conrad," Linnea said.

"I know."

"He'll go for the side."

"I know that too."

I stepped onto the pale stone, and the first change took me.

It came up from my spine in a rush, and my bones snapped and lengthened.

Black fur came out along my arms, and the hall dropped to the height of a wolf.

Across the ring, Roderick went to his knees and rose again as a huge grey beast, scarred along the muzzle, with a head broader than my chest.

He weighed a third more than I did.

He had been an Alpha for twenty-one years, and he had killed his way into every year of it.

I did not think about that.

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