Chapter 4: The Blood Test

The Hall lay two floors under the Northmen's training center, and I hadn't set foot in it for six years.

The stone stairs were the same.

So were the iron braziers, burning low along both walls, and the long gray veils hanging at the far end with their numbers in black iron.

I looked away from the veils and kept walking.

Forty wolves stood waiting in the firelight, and every head turned when we came down.

Emil held my hand so tightly that my fingers went numb.

"Mama, it smells weird," he whispered.

"I know, baby. Stay close."

Hattie walked on his other side with her chin high, in the parka she had refused to take off.

Bram came behind us, which I was starting to understand was a choice.

Rhys stood at the front of the Hall beside a stone bowl on a pedestal.

He was in a black suit now, with his hair still damp from a shower, and he didn't smile.

His eyes went to Emil and stayed there.

The eldest of the pack's elders stood on the other side of the bowl, a tall woman with a white braid down her back.

"The Hall calls a blood test," she said, and her voice rang off the stone. "An Alpha-line claim must be proven before the pack."

"The mother consents," I said, "so do it quickly."

Her eyes were not unkind.

"Give me your hand, child."

I looked down at Emil.

"It's a pinprick," Rhys said, and his voice was rougher than I'd ever heard it. "I'll go first, if he wants."

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