In Heat for My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: Dawn Exile

They gave me the rest of the night in the cellar storeroom, with a guard on the door and a bucket of water to wash in.

I scrubbed my hands until the skin burned.

The blood was still under my nails at dawn.

At six they brought me out onto the front steps of the packhouse.

The whole pack was on the lawn below in the gray light.

Two hundred wolves in coats and boots, breath steaming, nobody talking.

Somebody had brought my duffel and dropped it at the bottom of the steps.

Ozias stood at the top in his sheepskin coat.

My mother stood beside him.

"Liesel Ordway," he said, loud enough for the treeline. "You were found with the blade in your hand and the copper on your tools. The heir lives. That's the only reason you do."

I waited.

"You are exiled from Black Mountain. You will not set foot on pack land again. If you do, any wolf here may put you down."

Nobody gasped.

A few heads nodded.

"Dad!"

Judd was coming out the front door, and Ket was right behind him holding the end of his chain.

The rut had broken sometime before dawn.

His eyes were gray again, bloodshot and furious, and he was barefoot on the frozen boards.

He had a flannel shirt hanging open over the bandage.

"She didn't do it," he said. "I was there. You weren't."

Ozias turned.

He didn't raise his voice.

He didn't have to.

"Be silent, Judd."

It hit the air.

I watched it land on my stepbrother.

His jaw locked mid-word.

The cords in his neck stood out, and his mouth worked, and no sound came.

On the lawn, every wolf had dropped their eyes to the grass.

Ozias looked at me.

"And you will go quietly," he said, in the same voice, "and never speak of this house again."

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