Fated to My Mate's Uncle novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: The Circle

The Darby Alpha looked at the eldest elder.

The eldest elder looked sour and stiff.

"It's the oldest law in this hall," he said. "Any wolf of the Alpha's blood can call the circle. It's never been struck."

"It's barbaric," the Lolo Alpha said.

"It is. It's also law."

Fraser had stood up beside me.

I took hold of his arm.

"You don't have to," I said. "He's done. They heard her. Let the court..."

"If I refuse, he walks out of here saying I was afraid of the truth." Fraser looked down at me. "He's been saying it for eight years. I'm tired of it."

"He'll go for your side."

"I know."

"Forty-one stitches, Fraser."

"Fifty-three." His mouth moved, almost a smile. "And you'll be watching. Tell me what he's going to do before he does it."

"I can't shift. I can't help you."

"You can read him." He put his hand on my stomach, once. "That's always been enough."

The crew pushed the benches back.

The old circle was set into the floor in the middle of the hall.

It was a ring of flat river stones set into the timber, worn smooth by a hundred years of boots.

I'd walked over it a thousand times and never thought about what it was for.

Four hundred wolves stood up and crowded the edge of it.

Gregor stripped off his shirt and his shoes in the middle of the ring.

He looked at me while he did it.

Then he shifted.

His wolf was lean and dark gold, the color of his hair, with pale blue eyes that didn't change.

Fraser handed me his shirt.

He walked into the circle and shifted between one step and the next.

His wolf was half again the size of Gregor's, black, with a ruff that looked scorched at the ends.

On his left side, under the fur, a long seam of pink skin ran from ribs to hip.

Gregor saw it.

So did everyone.

The eldest elder raised his hand and let it drop.

Gregor came in low and fast, straight at the scar.

Fraser turned his shoulder into it and took the hit, and the two of them went across the stones in a snarl of fur.

The sound filled the rafters.

Somebody's pup started crying at the back of the hall.

They broke apart.

Gregor circled left, always left, toward the scar.

I breathed.

The hall stank of fur and fear and four hundred excited wolves.

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