Chapter 25: The Gray Collar

The state came into the Moot with a collar for my neck.

I was on my feet at the long oak table, three sentences from the end of my speech.

The ordinance was simple.

Any resident of any care home in the valley could name one visitor, and no director could turn that visitor away.

"Eleven homes," I said. "Eleven lists of names. Last winter nobody on those lists had a visitor, and that is the whole problem."

Nine Alphas sat along the table under the dusty flag.

The gray-hatted one in the middle chair nodded at me to go on.

Behind me, one pace back, Ronan stood with his hands where the room could see them.

The courtroom doors banged open.

A woman walked down the aisle in a navy suit and white gloves.

She looked about sixty, with a steel-gray bob and a smooth face with no lines in it at all.

A deputy marshal came behind her carrying a flat gray case.

Two wolves came with them, in human shape, one man and one young woman.

Both wore steel collars.

The collars were plain bands as wide as a hand, hinged at the back, with no lock I could see.

The wolves walked half a step behind the woman's heels and looked at nothing.

She stopped in front of the table.

"I am sorry to interrupt," she said. "Opal Harkness. I am the Director of the State Lycan Registry."

"This is a session of the Moot," the gray hat said.

"And this is a state order."

She handed a folded paper to the deputy.

The deputy laid it in front of me.

"I will wait while the lady reads it."

The woman sat down in the front bench.

Her wolves sat down beside her at the same moment.

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