Chapter 4: The Council Test

At noon the Council came to test me in the long hall, with the tables pushed back to the walls.

Twelve elders sat in a row on the dais where the Alpha eats.

Honora Crewe sat in the middle with her hands folded.

I stood on the stone floor in my apron, because I had told them I carried my own tray, and nobody had told me I could not.

Lavinia caught my sleeve before I went out.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered. "I'll stand right beside you the whole time."

She did.

Her warm shoulder pressed mine, and it was the only comfort I had in the room.

The healer stepped forward with a small velvet box.

He opened it, and a plain silver ring lay inside.

"Wear this," he said. "If a wolf is in you, however deep, the ring will wake it."

I slid it onto my left hand.

The silver was cold.

I waited for the light, or the burn, or the white wolf rising.

The ring stayed a ring.

A few of the elders sighed, and one of them shook her head.

"Again," Honora said gently. "She may be nervous."

The healer put my hand in his and turned it over, and I smelled his sweat, because he was nervous.

"Call it," he whispered. "Whatever you did last night, do it again."

I closed my eyes.

I thought about the hall on its knees.

I thought about the arm that had burned, and the voice that had come out of me in two pieces.

Nothing came.

The room waited.

The waiting went on until I could hear my own pulse.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Ordering the Lycan Princess to Kneel? from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.