They Forgot My Awakening, So I Took the Pack novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Say It Out Loud

Katja walks back in and names Blackthorn; Corwin requests her as his intern before two hundred wolves, and the Elder's copy of her card says Sovereign and that her mother knew.

I walked back into the hall with Corwin Strake's card in my fist and stopped at the head of the long table.

Nobody noticed until I put the card down on the registry list, right on top of Silvermoon.

"Blackthorn Pack," I said. "I'm taking the internship."

My brother Garrick laughed first.

"Katja, Blackthorn is the hardest pack in Highmere. They take two interns a year, and both are Alpha-grade."

"They asked for me," I said.

Odette looked up from her ribbon, frowning, and said, "Who asked you?"

My father, Bram Hallam, the Alpha of Pinewatch, did not laugh this time.

He picked up the card, read it, and set it back down with two fingers.

"Unranked wolves do not intern, kitten. Your mother already told the room."

"Then my mother can read my card out loud," I said. "The real one. Right now."

The whole table went quiet.

My mother's hand went to her purse and stayed there.

"Don't be dramatic, Katja. It says brown. You saw how I took it."

"I didn't see it," I said. "You folded it before I could look."

Someone behind me coughed.

Emmett Sorley stood up, red in the face, because he hates a scene when it isn't about Odette.

"Katja, sit down. Everybody's looking at you."

"Good," I said. "Nobody was an hour ago."

Garrick got up and stepped between me and the side door, arms wide.

"You're not going anywhere tonight. You're upset, and Mom's right, you need rest."

"Move, Garrick."

"No."

He is a foot taller than I am and has never once had to be told no.

I looked at his hands, held out to stop me, and I thought how easily he would carry Odette out of this room if she asked.

"The Council will want to hear why," a man said from the doorway.

The hall turned.

Corwin Strake had walked in without a sound, in his black coat with the silver pin, and two hundred wolves made room for him without being asked.

My father stood up so fast his chair scraped.

"Alpha Strake. This is a family matter."

"It stopped being one when the Moon Elder filed a copy of this trial with the Council," Corwin said. "Every Awakening is recorded in duplicate. That's the law you swore to when you took this seat."

He held up a thin envelope with a wax seal.

My mother stopped breathing, and I heard it.

"Blackthorn requests Katja Hallam as its intern for the next two years," Corwin went on, in front of all of them. "I am asking you in public, Alpha Hallam, so there is no argument later about who was asked."

My father looked at the pack.

Every Alpha in the country knows the rule that an Alpha's open request cannot be refused in front of witnesses without a reason given.

And he could not give a reason without opening my card.

"The girl is unranked," he said, tight. "I will not waste Blackthorn's time."

"Blackthorn can decide what to waste," Corwin said. "Do you refuse?"

The silence went on a long time.

I looked at the faces turned toward my father.

None of them were turned toward me, and that was how I knew how much they all wanted him to say no.

"I do not refuse," my father said at last.

My mother made a small sound in her throat, and her fingers whitened on the clasp of her purse.

Garrick's arms came down.

"Dad?"

"She goes," my father said. "She will be back in a month, begging, and when she comes back the door will be locked."

Odette stood up, her ribbon crooked, and for the first time that night she looked straight at me.

"Katja, wait."

"Odette, sit down," my mother snapped.

I did not wait.

I walked down the middle of the hall, between the benches, past Emmett, past the great Founding Stone with its old iron blade stuck in the top, and I did not look at my mother's face.

Corwin held the side door for me and followed me out into the dark.

His car was black and parked at the curb, and it smelled of cold air and cedar.

I got in because there was nowhere else to go.

My two suitcases were still on my bed at home, and my father's whole pack was laughing again behind the doors.

"I'll send for your things," Corwin said.

"They won't give them."

"Then I'll buy you new ones."

He didn't start the engine.

He took the thin sealed envelope out of his coat and gave it to me.

"That is the Moon Elder's own copy of your trial," he said. "Read it before you decide anything else about tonight."

I broke the wax with my thumbnail and unfolded the card.

The Elder's handwriting was small and neat.

KATJA HALLAM. FUR: WHITE. RANK: SOVEREIGN.

Under it, in the same hand: First Sovereign in one hundred and twelve years. Notify the Council within one day.

I read it three times.

My mouth was dry, and my hands had gone cold.

"Sovereign is above Alpha-grade," I said. "My sister is Alpha-grade."

"Yes."

"My mother stood in front of the whole pack and said brown."

"Yes."

"Why would she do that?"

Corwin turned the key, and the engine caught.

"Because there's a Council law she knows better than your father," he said. "A pack that hides a Sovereign loses its Alpha."

He pulled away from the curb, and I watched my family's lit windows shrink behind us in the mirror.

"Your father doesn't know the law applies to him tonight," he said. "Your mother does."

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