Chapter 19: The Door

I shifted in the air between one heartbeat and the next.

My clothes tore away and the world turned into smell and sound.

The Beta's jaws closed on nothing, a hand's width from where my throat had been.

I hit the turf with all four paws and spun, and he skidded and came around with his lips peeled back off yellow teeth.

Four thousand wolves were on their feet and screaming.

The Warden's key rang on the rail.

"Truce broken!" she roared. "Guards!"

They were too far away.

I knew it, and the Beta knew it.

He gathered his haunches under him for the second leap.

Ronan came out of nowhere and planted himself in front of me, a man in a torn white shirt with his empty hands open.

I could smell his terror, and his wolf under it, straining at the leash.

"Get behind me," he said hoarsely.

I could have laughed.

I put my shoulder against his hip and shoved him aside, and he staggered.

Then I threw my head back and howled.

It starts low.

It goes down through the soles of your feet and into the ground, and it has a note in it that does not belong above the soil.

My mother's voice, the Moon's voice, and mine.

The Beta's leap broke in the air.

He fell short and landed on his side in a sprawl, his legs stiff as sticks, and the yellow eyes rolled back in his skull.

I stood over him, trembling, and I did not stop.

He saw it.

I knew he did, because I saw him go.

His body shuddered and his throat opened, and a scream came out of him that was not a wolf's.

He was no longer in the Bowl.

He was somewhere else, in a smaller room, and the words came tumbling out of his throat in a stream.

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