Chapter 14: Silver Cords

"No," I said.

I said it from the top of the water tank, and the whole valley heard it.

Osric smiled up at me from the ridge.

"Then you choose this," he said, and lowered his stick.

The rogues came down the mountain all at once.

They came in human skin and wolf skin, a hundred and fifty of them, and the ground shook under the gate.

"Hold the line!" Wystan roared.

Sixty Silverfen wolves shifted in a single heartbeat, and the yard filled with fur and snarling.

I jumped off the tank and let the change take me.

It was easier now.

My wolf met me halfway, and then I was silver and enormous on four legs, with the moon in my eyes.

The first rogue hit me at a dead run.

I caught him by the throat and threw him into the fence.

The second went down under my paws.

I saw Joran at the gate with the axe held low, in a borrowed shirt, with no wolf and no pack behind him.

Three rogues went for him together.

He took the first on the flat of the axe and put him on the ground.

He sidestepped the second and swung low, and the man screamed and fell.

The third got an arm around his neck from behind.

Fenn hit that rogue from the side with a wrench and a shout.

"I'm the mechanic!" Fenn yelled, to nobody. "I fix things!"

Joran tore the arm off his throat.

He did not have his old strength, and he fought like a man who knew it.

He fought dirty and fast, and he never once turned his back on the gate.

Then the cords began to glow.

Every rogue in the yard had a thread of silver at his wrist, and each thread ran back up the hill to Verity's hands.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Alpha Who Rejected His Queen from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.