Chapter 11: The Council

The pack hall was full before the sun was fully up.

Every chair was taken, and people stood along the walls.

Five elders sat behind the long oak table at the front.

Cade's mother sat in the middle, with her hands folded and her face made of stone.

I walked in beside Lachlan in yesterday's jeans and a flannel Pearl had pushed into my arms at the gate.

His hand rested at the small of my back.

He didn't hide it.

Two hundred heads turned, and the murmur ran along the rows.

Cade sat in the front row with his arm in a clean white bandage.

Mirabel sat next to him in grey, with her eyes down.

"Sit," Cade's mother said, to the room. "We are here for a single purpose."

The hall quieted.

"Two days ago, June Rowley told this pack she felt a fated bond. She did not name it."

She looked at me for the first time.

"Today she will name it, and the pack will see whether it is true."

"I don't need to name it," I said.

"Then you will take the test."

"I'll take it with him."

Her mouth thinned.

"Then step forward, Alpha," she said, in a voice of ice.

Lachlan walked to the middle of the hall.

I went with him.

We stood in the open space with two hundred people watching.

He held out his right wrist.

His hand was steady, but I could feel the second heartbeat in my chest going wild.

I put my wrist against his.

For one second, nothing.

Then the skin under our wrists lit up.

A silver line ran up the inside of my arm, and a gold one ran up his.

The two met and wound together in the middle.

The glow spread.

It lit the faces in the front rows, and the rafters, and the old banners on the walls.

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