The End of Us novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Ring Comes Home

Maud came at me with the silver blade held low.

I knew what silver did to a wolf.

One cut would hold open for a week, and it would burn the whole time.

She feinted left, and I did not take it.

I went right, and the blade opened the air where my ribs had been.

She spun and slashed again, and I let her come.

At the end of the stroke I lunged and closed my teeth on her wrist.

She screamed.

The blade fell from her hand and stuck point down in the grass.

I dragged her arm out, and she went over on her back.

I stood on her chest with all four paws.

My jaws were an inch from her face, and I could feel her pulse beating in her throat.

She stared up at me.

I could have ended it.

Three hundred wolves wanted me to.

Her eyes went to the blade, and then to the white-haired elder on the bench, and then back to me.

"Yield," I thought at her, as clearly as I could.

I do not know if wolves can hear that.

"Yield," Maud said hoarsely.

"Louder," said the elder, rising.

"I yield. I yield the seat."

"And the challenge?"

"I yield it."

I stepped off her.

I shifted back in a rush of silver light, shaking and bare, and Keith was there before my knees hit the grass, with his coat around my shoulders.

"You're hurt," he said.

"It's gone."

He pulled the coat tight under my chin, and his hands trembled.

"I couldn't breathe," he said into my hair.

"I know."

Maud lay on her side in the grass, holding her torn wrist.

Her hair had come loose.

I walked to her, and I knelt, and I took hold of her right hand.

The iron ring was heavy and rough.

I worked it over her knuckle while she watched me with dead eyes.

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