Chapter 11: The Council Circle

The war horn sounded before breakfast.

I knew it from childhood, one long note across the whole valley.

It meant every wolf in Pine Ridge was wanted at the Moon Circle.

I sat up in a tangle of sheets with a silver crescent burning in my palm.

The bed was empty.

Three sets of boots were gone from the floor.

A note lay on the pillow in Lorcan's neat hand.

Stay with the kids. We'll be at the Circle. Don't come until we send for you.

I read it once and got dressed.

I ran to the infirmary and found my children asleep in the iron bed.

My mother was gone.

I woke them, put shoes on them, and walked out into the cold morning with all three by the hand.

The Moon Circle was a ring of old gray standing stones in the meadow behind the Hall.

The pack had already gathered around it.

Hugh stood in the center on a raised block of stone.

Thane, Lorcan and Gareth stood on the grass before him, facing him.

They hadn't been sent to fetch me.

They had been summoned.

I walked into the ring.

"Ah," said Hugh. "The mother."

My palm was still burning.

I closed my fist.

"The Alpha's three sons carry the old mark," Hugh told the crowd.

"It appeared last night, on the full moon, on all three of them. I knew it would."

I stared at him.

"You knew?"

"Of course. A triad bond, between three brothers and a single woman, is the oldest and rarest in our history."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Three Alphas Who Denied My Triplet Babies Came Back... from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.