She Killed Me Once, So This Time the Whole Pack Is Watching novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Judgment at Dawn
The pack gathered in the moon hall at dawn with the burned boards still wet.
Somebody had swept the broken bowl into a corner.
Mother stood alone on the floor of the dais, in the same gray wrap she had worn the night she was stabbed.
I stood eight feet from her, on the side of the pack.
Bram was at my shoulder.
Father sat on the front bench with his side bound up and his hands on his knees.
He did not look at her.
"Odette Greer," the Alpha said. "You asked to be heard."
"Yes."
"Say what you did."
She said it plainly, to the benches, and I watched the pack hear it.
She said she had hidden a rogue's child for eighteen years and called her an orphan.
She said she had taught the child to shake and cry and show her claws on command.
She said she had stood in a room with her daughter bleeding and told her to forgive.
Somebody near the back began to cry.
"I did not do it for the pack," Mother said. "I did not do it for my husband. I did it because I could not stand for anyone to look at her and see him."
She turned to me.
"Rosalind. You were asked to stand against me. Say what you want."
My mouth was dry.
"The river was not yours," I said.
The hall went quiet.
"What he did to you at the river was a crime, and the pack failed you, because you were afraid of its law. I won't hear one word of blame for it." I took a breath. "What you did after the river is yours."
"Yes."
"You turned your fear into my body, Mother. Every time she touched me, you chose her. It wasn't one night. It was six years of nights, and you could have stopped any of them."
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