The Rejected Mate novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Challenge
The two wolves hit the grass together and rolled.
Willa had never seen a fight between grown males, and the noise of it made her stumble back against the Stone.
It was all weight and teeth and the thick wet sound of bodies meeting.
The pack scattered from the ring, dragging children behind them, and the lanterns swung wildly in the pines.
Rufus was bigger by a third.
He got his jaws into Caelen's shoulder and shook.
Caelen screamed through his teeth and tore free, leaving a strip of grey fur behind.
Blood spattered across the white lace of the veil on the ground.
"Caelen!" Willa shouted.
The dark wolf scrambled up on three good legs, and the older wolf circled him with his head low.
"Stop them," someone cried. "Moon, somebody stop them."
"Nobody stops them."
It was Odette, quite calm, with her hands folded in her grey silk.
"There is one law for this, and my son knows it."
"Caelen. Say the words."
The dark wolf looked at her.
Then he did a thing that made the whole ring gasp.
He shifted back to a man in the middle of the fight.
He stood bare and bleeding in the lantern light, with his left shoulder ripped open to the bone.
He stood up straight and looked at the great grey wolf across the grass.
"I am Caelen Braithwaite, heir of Ironwood," he said, loud and rough. "Before the Moon and before this pack, I challenge my father for the Alpha's seat."
"You all heard him tonight. I say he is not fit to lead you."
The silence went on a heartbeat longer than it should have.
Then the elder at the front, the one who had said nobody had used the Right in sixty years, cleared his throat.
"The challenge is heard," he said. "The seat is claimed by the strongest, fairly, in the ring."
"Let the Moon decide."
Rufus's eyes went to the faces of his pack.
Willa watched him look for one wolf who would step out and take his side.
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