Chapter 20: The Platform

Seren's POV

The Blood Moon came up red over the old stone platform, and the whole valley was waiting for it.

Both packs stood on the south slope, a thousand wolves in their good coats.

The vampire courts held the north, black-clad and silent, with torches burning at their feet.

Lord Aurelian sat in a black chair at the front of the northern courts with a rug across his knees.

The Council wolves sat in a half circle at the center.

I stood alone on the stone with my wrists bare.

The Council's summons had come to the manor door while Evander was facing his father.

I had gone at once, because the law says you do not make the Council wait.

I told his friend to give him three messages: moonrise, the platform, bring the blanket.

Then I walked out of that house with nobody beside me.

It was the hardest thing I had done all year.

The white-haired elder stood and raised her staff.

"Seren Fenner," she said. "Come forward."

I came forward.

"The pack raised you for eighteen years. At the ceremony you did not shift."

"No."

"You told the pack you were a late shifter. Is that true?"

"No."

A rumble went across the slope.

"Do you have a wolf?"

"No."

"Then shift now, in front of this Council, and prove it."

I looked up at the red moon.

I stood still, and I waited for my bones to crack.

They did not.

I was a girl in a white dress under a moon that was not mine, and a thousand wolves watched me fail.

"I can't," I said. "I'm human. I've always been human."

A growl went through the whole slope.

Someone spat on the ground.

Someone else wept.

Camryn knelt at the edge of the platform in her white coat, with a Council wolf's hand on her shoulder.

She was staring at me with pure hatred.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fated Mate Chose My Sister, So I Claimed the Vampire Heir from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.