Chapter 18: The Challenge

The ring was packed to the rafters by noon.

Word had gone through the Academy that the Greyfall Alpha had been voted down and had flown south to fight his own daughter.

Nobody was in class.

I stood in the sand in my cadet jacket and watched the gate.

Torin sat on the judge's platform with Ferris at his shoulder.

He had told me the law an hour ago.

A stripped Alpha could challenge the one he blamed, and the Crown could not step in unless one of them died.

"You can refuse," he had said.

"I know."

"I would rather you did."

"I know that, too."

I had not refused.

Dad came through the gate at the stroke of noon.

He looked ten years older.

His coat was wrinkled, his eyes were red, and he walked into the ring still expecting to be obeyed.

Mom followed three steps behind him, in her good grey coat with her handbag held in front of her in both hands.

She did not look at me.

"Nessa," Dad said.

"You flew a long way to say my name."

"You've humiliated this family in front of the Crown."

"You bought a rank for Poppy with the pack's money."

"I did what a father does!" he said. "I protected my daughter!"

"You protected one of them."

His face went dark.

"On your knees," he said.

It was the Alpha command.

I felt it come across the sand like a hand pressed to my shoulders.

It slid off me, and I stood where I was.

I heard the whole ring gasp.

"That is the second time you've tried that on me," I said. "It doesn't work. It never will."

He roared, and the bones shifted under his skin.

He came at me as a huge brown wolf, all teeth and weight.

I let my own wolf out and met him in the middle of the sand.

He had fought for thirty years and he fought dirty.

He went for my legs, then my belly, then my throat, and every time I turned him.

His claws opened my shoulder.

I tasted blood, and I did not slow down.

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