Chapter 21: Beside Me, Not In Front

The garage was two levels under the lobby, a concrete space full of pack trucks.

Forty Blood Ridge enforcers stood in a half circle around the Silver Creek bay.

Their own trucks were nosed in at angles, so that no one could back out.

They had their jackets off, and their sleeves pushed up.

Their captain, a stocky man with a shaved head, leaned on a bumper and smiled when he saw me.

"There she is," he said. "The Council's favorite."

"Move your trucks."

"Alpha Colter is under guard in your tower," he said. "We'd like him back."

He tipped his head at me.

"We'd also like the girl to go home with her pack, where she belongs."

"I belong to the Crown."

"Then the Crown can trade."

Dessa was coming down the ramp behind me with a dozen Wardens, but she stopped when I put up a hand.

"Let me," I said through the link.

"You always say that," said Dessa.

"I'm going to say it a lot."

I walked into the open space between the lines.

I felt my brothers come out of the elevator behind me, five sets of boots on concrete.

They stopped at my back.

I turned around.

They stood in a row, tall and heavy in their pack jackets, with their hands hanging at their sides.

For a second I was at the circle again, in a blue dress, looking at the same five faces.

My eldest brother stepped forward.

"Brin," he said. "We'd like to stand in front of you."

"No."

He blinked.

"Not in front," I said. "Beside me. I'm not something you hold."

"Then what do you want?"

"Stand where I can see you, and hit whatever comes at us."

My second brother laughed, a short startled bark.

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