She Stole My Wolf, So I Rejected the Alpha novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Judgement

They were kneeling to Merrick.

He didn't know it at first. He was still on his knees by the pit, with blood on his sleeve, looking at the rope.

Then Torin took his shoulder and turned him around.

Three hundred wolves were down on the frozen grass, wave after wave, all the way to the hall steps.

Merrick stared.

"Get up," he said hoarsely. "Don't. Get up."

Nobody got up.

The council elder rose alone, slowly, with a hand on her hip.

"Ada MacNeil's son," she said. Her voice carried without effort. "Garth Brackwell is no Alpha. He fed this pack on its own daughters for thirty years, and we let him, because we were afraid."

She turned to the man on the ground.

"Garth. You will hear the pack's judgement."

He lay on his side. His coat was black and the left half of his face was raw. His eyes were open, and they were pale grey and empty.

"You are stripped of your name and your title," she said. "You will leave Silverpine tonight with what you wear. You will not cross the county road again. If you do, no one in this valley will lift a rope."

A hunter and the old man with the coil of rope took Garth under the arms.

He didn't fight them. He didn't say a word.

They carried him down the hill toward the road, and the pack parted for them, and nobody looked.

That was all.

I had thought it would feel like more.

"Lorna Oakes," the elder said next.

My sister lifted her head from Pippa's shoulder.

"You held the torch in a life none of us remember, and you held it again in this one. You also threw one into the pit instead of at a girl, and gave a wolf back freely." The old woman's face did not soften. "The pack does not forgive you. It does not kill you, either."

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