Chapter 13: The Ring

"A challenge must be answered before the moon clears the Stone," the Stone-keeper said. "That is the law."

She looked at Corbin on his hands and knees.

"Alpha Stroud, you may name a champion, or you may stand yourself."

Corbin pushed up off the frozen grass.

His eyes were brown, and blood from his split lip ran into his collar.

"I'll stand."

"Corbin, you can't shift," I said.

"I know."

"Then you'll be torn apart."

"Then I'll be torn apart as the man who owned the seat." He didn't look at me. "Don't, Rhiannon."

I hadn't said what I was about to say.

The new strength sat in my chest, warm and heavy, and I knew how it would run if I let it.

One touch on his arm and the thread would go back into him.

He would stand up gold-eyed and finish Whitcombe in a minute.

"I can give it back," I said, low.

"I know you can." His voice shook. "And I would spend my life as a man who fights on your leash."

"That's pride."

"Yes."

"It's a stupid time for pride."

"It's the only thing I have that's mine." He finally turned his face to me. "I won't take it. Not like this."

"Not like what?"

"Not before you've decided what I am to you. Not because I'm bleeding."

He walked into the circle before I could answer.

Alpha Whitcombe was already stripping off his coat.

He was sixty and heavy in the shoulders. When he shifted he came out of his skin in one rolling wave.

He landed as a grey wolf as tall as my chest.

Hollowmere's two hundred drew back into a ring.

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