Chapter 22: New Law

Lowen's POV

The pack met in the Longhouse on Wednesday, with the long tables pushed against the walls and no one sitting in the Elder's chair.

I stood at the back between Beck and Linnea, in a clean green jacket, with Stellan leaning on my shoulder.

Garrick walked to the front.

He had shaved the grey-streaked beard to stubble, and he looked ten years older and lighter.

"I held the Alpha's seat for twenty years on a lie," he said. "I'm giving it back."

"You don't have to," called a woman near the front. It was the one whose cousin had been cut.

"I do," Garrick said. "A man who held two friends down shouldn't lead anyone."

"The pack decides that," another voice said. "Not you."

Somebody started to bang a fist on a table.

Then fifty more fists joined in.

When it stopped, a very old man stood up and said, "Aye or nay on Garrick Niemi as a member of this pack."

Every hand in the room went up.

Garrick covered his mouth and turned to the wall.

"Aye or nay on his son for Alpha," the old man said.

Torsten stood in the doorway with his arm in its sling and did not move.

He hadn't asked for it. He had come to stand with his father.

"Torsten," Linnea said loudly. "Don't be a martyr about it. Walk up there."

The pack laughed.

It was the first laugh in that room in a week.

Torsten walked up the aisle, and the hands went up, and went up, and went up.

He stood on the dais where his father had stood.

"I won't make a speech," he said.

"Good," somebody called, and he almost smiled.

"I'll make one law. It's short."

"No thread is ever cut in this pack. Not for any reason, by any hand, for any Alpha. The knife stays in the lake."

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