Chapter 22: Judgment

Keira's POV

Ashgrove's great hall had never held so many people.

They stood to the doors and out into the rain, the whole pack.

The old Beta stood at the front. The smallest child sat on her mother's hip.

I stood at the long table in a dress the old cook had pressed.

Lucan stood at my shoulder, in the hall of the people who had once wanted me dead.

His arm was still in its sling. His other hand rested at the small of my back.

Rowan came in last.

He walked the length of the hall alone, past every wolf he had ever commanded, and stopped in front of me.

Then Rowan Lamont, Alpha of Ashgrove, went down on both knees on the stone.

A sound went through the pack.

"I have not asked for anything in eighteen years," he said, loud enough to reach the doors. "I will ask once."

"Say it," I said.

"Forgive me."

My eyes burned. I did not look away.

"You said drown it. You were ten years old."

"I was."

"You were ten when you said it."

"You were twenty-two when you let Cade lock my door."

"You were twenty-eight when you watched me walk to the sea."

"I was."

"That part is yours," I said. "Not the elders'. Yours."

He lowered his head.

"I know."

I let him stay there for a long moment.

Then I crouched in front of him and took his face in both my hands.

"Get up," I said. "You don't kneel to me. You are my brother."

"Keira."

"You say it every day for a year. Out loud. In the kitchen, where I ate."

"Every day," he said hoarsely.

"That's the price."

He got up.

He took the heavy iron chain of the Alpha off his neck, with its worn black wolf, and held it in both hands.

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