Chapter 8: The Trial

The pack hall was fuller at noon on a Sunday than it had been for the Mating Moon.

People stood along the walls and sat on the stairs to the loft.

Somebody had brought a baby.

The council's long table stood under the skylight, with seven elders behind it and Imogen in the middle chair in pearl gray.

She smiled at me when I came in.

Bram walked beside me.

Every head turned to watch us, and this time, I noticed, a few of them dipped.

There was one empty chair in front of the table.

I didn't sit in it.

"Neve, sweetheart," Imogen said gently. "Nobody here wants to hurt you. We only want to understand what happened at the north shore."

"Then ask me."

A ripple went down the walls.

The eldest elder, a stooped man with a cane, cleared his throat.

"The Alpha says you used witchcraft to throw him and his men to the ground."

"I didn't throw anybody. I told them to get down."

"And they got down."

"Yes."

"How?"

"I don't know yet," I said. "I'm working on it."

Somebody near the stairs laughed and was hushed.

Corbin stood up from the front bench.

He'd had his coat cleaned.

"She isn't well," he told the elders, and the room.

"I want to be clear that I don't blame her."

"She's my fated mate and she's sick, and that man out there has made it worse."

He turned to me with soft, sorry eyes.

I'd seen those eyes over a pillow.

"Let her come home to my house until the moon," he said. "My mother will nurse her. That's all I've ever wanted."

People nodded.

It was a good speech.

Imogen squeezed the bridge of her nose.

"Sienna," she said. "You were there, dear."

Sienna stood up from the second row in her white fur collar.

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