Chapter 23: Past the Gate

I looked at Tobias on the edge of the dais.

He had been the handsomest man in Cedarvale, and the Alpha's heir, and mine.

Now his cheeks were hollow and his hand shook in the air between us.

"Me too," he said again. "You can fix it. You fixed her."

"I fixed her once, on her terms and mine."

"Then fix me."

"For what price?"

He stared.

"You asked her to give up the mark," he said. "I'll give up anything. Name it."

"You had your chance to name it this afternoon," I said. "You said no, in front of everyone, because you didn't want to be nothing."

"I was afraid."

"Everyone is afraid, Tobias. Melisande was afraid, and she still said it."

"Yvaine..."

"You told me it was only for the winter."

His mouth opened.

He had no answer for that, and he must have known it.

The new Alpha said quietly, "What is the pack's will for the Reinhard heir?"

An elder rose at the front.

"He has no wolf," he said. "He has no claim. The mark that fed him is gone and he cannot lead."

"He took a girl's strength for two years and called it his own," said another.

"Strip him of the name Reinhard, and let him go."

"Aye," said the hall.

It came in a rumble, from four hundred throats.

Tobias made a thin noise.

Two wardens took his arms.

He did not fight them.

He turned his head as they lifted him and looked at me one last time.

I held his eyes.

I did not look away, and I did not soften.

I only watched him go.

They walked him down the aisle between the benches, past people who had once bowed to him.

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