Chapter 23: The Claim

Madoc's hand came up and cupped the side of my face.

His thumb stroked over the two pale arcs where the king's teeth had been.

"Are you sure?" he said, low enough that only I could hear.

"I'm asking you in front of four thousand wolves."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

He laughed under his breath, and bent his head.

His mouth settled against my throat, warm, and I felt his breath, and then his teeth.

He bit down.

It was sharp and bright and deep, and it burned for one blazing second.

Then the burn turned to heat and flooded outward through every part of me.

I gasped.

Rue threw back her head inside me and howled, and across the ring I heard his wolf answer.

The bond snapped tight.

I could feel him.

I felt his joy and his terror.

I felt a want so old and deep that it stopped me where I stood.

I felt that he had been lonely for thirty-eight years.

He lifted his mouth, and licked the bite once, and held me up with both arms as my knees went.

"Mine," he said, rough, against my skin.

The Stonering broke open.

Thousands of wolves howled at once, and the standing stones shook with it.

It poured up the sides of the bowl and rolled back down.

The lycans at the north edge were pounding their chests with their fists.

Hild was weeping openly into my mother's shoulder.

An old Alpha in the front row bowed to me from the waist.

He was the one with the gray beard who had called me thrown away.

"Luna," he called.

Then the whole bowl was saying it.

"Luna. Luna. Luna."

Madoc turned his head, and I put my hand on the back of his neck.

I bit him again, on the other side, in front of them all.

He shuddered and swore, and the howl went up louder.

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