Chapter 22: The Ring

The ring was a circle of packed snow in the palace courtyard, forty paces across.

Benches were stacked on three sides, and every pack in the kingdom crowded around it.

The Crown guards stood along the walls.

Garrick limped in from the east gate without his crutch.

He had taken off his shirt, and the bandage on his thigh was fresh and tight.

I came in from the west with Lucan at my shoulder.

Margery stayed on the bench with her cane across her knees.

"You can still stop this," Lucan said, very low.

"I can't."

"Then end it fast."

He kissed my forehead, and did not look back as he went.

At the center of the ring, the eldest councilor raised his staff.

"Wolf to wolf," he said. "To yield or to be unable. No weapons. No outside hand. Begin."

I shifted before he lowered the staff.

The snow was cold on my paws.

The wolf was already running in my blood, and she was not afraid.

Garrick changed a breath behind me, a big sandy brown wolf with blue eyes.

He was fast.

He had always been fast, in the saddle and on his feet.

For the first three passes I could not touch him.

He hit me in the shoulder, on the side where Graymoor's man had bitten me in the valley.

The pain went white.

I spun and caught air.

He circled, favoring the bandaged leg, and I saw that it was not much of a weakness.

He came in low, and his teeth closed on my flank.

The crowd groaned.

I dropped and rolled and he lost his grip.

On the ground, in the cold, with his scent in my nose, I thought of a cup of tea going cold on a table.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Kept Me as a Spare, But I Married a Prince from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.