Chapter 21: The Challenge

Torin's POV

The ring stood on the frozen shore below Highcrest, in a ring of trampled snow.

Every northern pack had come to watch the King of the north fight for his seat.

I stood in the center in my shirt and trousers with my boots off.

The champion of Pinecrest stood across from me.

He was twenty-eight, six foot four, and he didn't look at me once.

I understood that.

A man who looks at the King sees a person, and a person is harder to kill.

Behind the ropes, the crowd had gone as still as pines.

I found her at once.

Cora stood at the front of the Redfern rows with her hands in her coat pockets and her chin up.

Hazel stood beside her, on a crate, in her good boots.

Declan was a pace behind them, not touching either one.

I had asked Cora not to come, and I had known she would.

"Is the Crown ready?" said the old Alpha of the eastern packs, who presided.

"It is."

"Then the challenge is accepted, and the loser of a lawful challenge stays dead. Begin."

He dropped the white cloth.

The champion shifted before it hit the snow.

He was a huge gray wolf with a scarred muzzle, and he hit me in the chest at full speed, with his whole weight, before I had finished my own change.

I went down hard.

I heard something in my ribs give.

His jaws closed on my left forearm, on the burn scar, and he shook me.

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