Chapter 20: The Healer Answers

Brock was loose, and a woman in a grey coat had opened his cell.

Lucan did not cancel the Court.

He put his wolves on every door of the Silver Creek pack hall and told me to stay between him and Hazel.

"He'll come," I said.

"Then he comes into a room full of witnesses," Lucan said.

The Court sat at noon in the same hall where I had taken the bet money.

Every time the doors moved, I turned my head to see who it was.

The banner still hung over the stage.

CONGRATS TO THE LYCAN KING ON HIS NEW PRIZE.

I looked at it as I walked in, and I did not feel small.

Every Silver Creek wolf who owned a chair was in the room, and the rest stood along the walls.

Many of them would not meet my eyes.

The envoy sat at the front with the ledger, the shoebox and the marked deck laid out on a table in front of her.

The healer stood alone in the center of the floor, in her grey coat, with her hands tied in front of her.

She looked small.

She did not look sorry.

Hazel sat in the first row with her stick across her knees, and I sat down beside her.

Lucan stood at the back wall with his arms folded, as the law required.

"The Court will hear the charge," the envoy said.

"Forging a mate bond by blood rite on an unwilling girl. Eight years of renewals."

She turned a page.

"An attempt to rig the Blood Moon table. Poisoning, by her daughter's hand, at her order."

"Hazel Ardmore. Stand, if you can."

Hazel stood without help.

"You are the pack's retired midwife," the envoy said. "You were there when the mark was set?"

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