The Apex They Could Never Own: A Werewolf Romance of Power, Possession, and Fate novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Order Burns

"Get up," I said. "All of you. Please."

It wasn't the Voice.

It was a tired woman asking nicely, and the wolves of the Silsbee Valley got slowly to their feet, rubbing grass off their knees.

The old Council woman with the white hair stepped forward.

She had taken the silver pin off her sleeve at the Gathering, and now she held it out to me on her palm.

"Speaker," she said. "The Seat is empty. The oldest law says it passes to the Apex. We would be honored."

I looked at the pin.

Then I looked at Dad, who had his arms folded and his chin set.

"No, thank you," I said.

She blinked.

"I fix cars," I said. "I'm good at it. I've got a garage with my name on it, a loan I'm told is void, and a father who's going to need a very long weekend."

A ripple of laughter went through the families.

"But somebody has to sit in that chair," the old woman said.

"Somebody does," I said. "Not somebody who gets to speak an Order."

Ansel was standing beside me with the coat over his shoulders, and I felt him go still.

"Bring me the book," I said.

They brought it from the Council table: a scroll case in black leather, and inside it the oath every Speaker had sworn since the first.

I read the first line out to the bluff: the black cuff is sworn to the Seat, and the Seat may speak what the black cuff must do.

"This is the leash," I said. "It was written down so that nobody would have to say it was a choice."

I laid the scroll on the altar, in the dust where Corbin had died.

"Burn it."

The old woman looked at me for a long moment.

Then she struck a match from her pocket, and the old paper took the flame at the corner.

It burned slowly, with a thin yellow light.

When it was ash, the wind took it off the bluff and over the valley.

Nobody said a word.

Then Hattie's mother cleared her throat.

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