Chapter 26: The Seat

Bryn's POV

The stone drank my blood, and then it took hold of me.

Pain went up my arm and into my chest, and I could not let go of the rock if I wanted to.

I heard the whole pack gasp at once.

I did not know why, until I looked down and saw the seam in the stone glowing red, from the base to the crown.

"Bryn!" June screamed.

I could not answer her.

The mark burned into the palm that touched the rock, and then it spread up my wrist in dark lines, a circle with a crooked split through it.

My wolf rose inside me and did not fight it.

She knew this place.

She had been starving for it for twenty-four years.

The stone gave a long low note I felt in my teeth, and every wolf in that road dropped to one knee.

Not for me.

For the sound.

I stayed on my feet, because I had finally learned I could.

When the note faded, I lifted my hand off the rock.

The mark stayed, black and clean.

"Redcedar," I said, and I did not need the voice of command, because the road was so quiet.

"I took this seat this morning in front of all of you, and nobody made me do it."

My throat was raw, and the words came out rough.

"Bring Declan Harlan."

They brought him from the Moon Hall between two guards, in the same clothes he had worn the night Elias broke his wrist.

The wrist was splinted and swollen.

He walked upright and looked at no one, and I saw how thin the year of Sabine's tea had made him.

The guards stopped him in front of me.

"Daughter," he said, perfectly calm.

"Alpha," I said, and I turned to the pack. "I am taking his chain."

He put a hand to his collar.

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