Chapter 20: I Stay

The Stone woke at moonrise, as the envoy had said.

It began as a hum in the soles of my feet, and then the whole ridge was humming with it.

Soren stood across the granite from me in a plain dark shirt, and he was shaking.

I had held his hand through the whole afternoon, and it hadn't been enough.

His wolf was pushing at his skin, and every few minutes his eyes flashed gold.

The three Alphas stood at the north edge. The old woman and the council stood at the south.

My father sat in his chair at the west edge, with the Alpha's seal in his lap.

Dane stood at the back of the crowd, bareheaded, with a pack elder's hand under his arm to keep him up.

"Prince Draycott," said the envoy. "Who stands with you?"

"Linnea Lindstrom," Soren said. His voice was nearly a growl. "Of the Moon's pure line."

"Linnea Lindstrom. Do you stand?"

"I stand."

"By the terms you signed, the Rite ends your bond's price and frees you to leave. Do you stay, or do you walk?"

It was the third term. I had written it myself in Lyon, in a cold embassy office, with my pen shaking.

I had meant it. I had meant every word.

Soren's amber eyes found mine.

He didn't ask. He had learned that, I thought, in three days. He stood on the Stone and burned and did not ask.

"I stay," I said.

His whole body breathed out.

"Then bind it," said the envoy.

Soren's wolf broke.

I saw it come up under his skin all at once.

The black claws came, and the gold in his eyes, and a low sound in his chest that was no longer a man's.

He took a step toward me and nearly fell.

The pack went back a step. Somebody gasped.

"Linnea," Soren said, hoarsely. "Go. Don't..."

I crossed the Stone in three strides and put both hands on his face.