Chapter 21: Challenge

Nobody breathed.

Challenge was the oldest right either pack had.

An Alpha whose father was killed could call the killer out.

The two would fight until one of them yielded or died.

It had not been claimed in sixty years.

"Costa," I said.

He did not look at me.

"Cairnfell will not stand easy with a pardon," he said, to the whole square.

"Half my pack walked out of my hall last night, and the rest wants blood."

"If I hand them a speech, they'll say I sold my father for a Thackeray's bed."

"I'll answer it," Rhys said.

"You don't have to."

"I do."

He took off my father's coat, and laid it across the stone table, and walked out to the middle of the ring.

Costa pulled his shirt over his head.

The two packs backed away from them in a wide circle.

I was shoved to the front of it by the press of bodies.

"Rhys," I said.

"Stay out of it, Willa."

"Costa, please."

"Stay there," Costa said.

They shifted.

I had seen my brother do it a hundred times, and it was never easy to watch.

His bones went and came back wrong, and then a huge brown wolf stood where he had been.

Costa's wolf was black and enormous, with a pale scar over one eye.

They went at each other without a sound.

The first clash was a crack that I felt in my teeth.

The black wolf took the brown one's shoulder, spun him, and let go.

The brown wolf rolled up bleeding and came in low.

He hit Costa in the ribs so hard he skidded across the stone.

Costa got up.

The second time, Rhys didn't dodge.

I saw it before anyone else did.

He had the opening, and he turned his head aside.

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