Chapter 11: Blood Challenge

The whole pack stood around the ring before the sun was fully up.

Nobody had to be called.

Kellan stood outside the line of white stones with his hands fisted at his sides.

Charter law forbade him to cross it.

An Alpha could not stand in for a challenger.

"You don't have to do this," he said, very low, as I passed him.

"Yes, I do."

"I'll take it from you. I'll break the law."

"And lose the seat. They'd vote you out by noon." I did not look at him. "Stay where you are."

He did.

I heard him breathe once, ragged, and I walked into the ring.

Osric was waiting in the center in his shirtsleeves, with a long silver knife held loosely in his right hand.

He had put his hair back from his face for the first time in fifteen years.

I looked at his left ear.

The scar was white and ragged, a notch bitten clean out of the edge.

The whole pack saw it.

A low murmur ran around the circle.

"Brigid," Osric said fondly. "You were always stubborn."

"You held the lantern."

"I'll hold your hand when you go." He smiled. "I'll even bury you myself."

He shifted.

His wolf was big and grey and broad in the shoulder, and it came at me before the shape was finished.

I shifted a half second later, and my bones hurt.

The first rush took me in the ribs.

I went down, rolled, and felt the silver blade open the skin along my thigh before I could get my feet under me.

It was only a line, but it burned.

Silver burned a wolf all the way into the bone.

I heard Kellan shout my name.

I heard Hester say, very clearly, "Get up, you stupid cow."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid My Sister's Killer, So the Alpha Poured Truth Down My Throat from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.