Chapter 22: The Seat

Kellan's POV

They would not let me into the hall.

It was pack business, the eldest said, and I was a neighbor with no standing in Highridge's seat.

I said I understood, and I went and sat on the packhouse steps.

They were wide timber steps, scuffed pale where boots had worn them, with a lit porch above.

I knew whose they were.

She had sat here from four in the morning with her phone fully charged.

I put my hands between my knees and looked at the road.

The doors were propped for the heat, and I could hear every word.

I had thought I would be afraid.

For nineteen years I had been afraid of one thing, a woman standing in a circle while a man in a good coat told her it was a blessing.

I waited for the fear.

It didn't come.

Her voice carried clearly from the hall, level and warm.

"I'm grateful you asked," Devon said. "I mean that. Nobody asked me anything for sixteen years, and you did it in front of both packs."

"Then you accept," the eldest said.

"No."

A long rustle ran through the room.

"I'm not going to be Luna of Highridge, and I'm not going to be the Anchor. I'm going to be a nurse at Stonefall's clinic, which doesn't have one."