Chapter 21: The Blood Moon

Marit's POV

I poured Linnea's tea into the snow and watched it steam.

Then I put the flask in my pocket for the elders to smell later.

The Blood Moon rose over the East Gate the color of a wound.

It was the same moon.

I had seen it come up this way once before, with an empty road and a locked jaw.

This time half the pack stood behind me.

They had come at Hallvard's call, unarmed, in their good coats, to watch the Alpha make peace.

Children sat on shoulders.

Elders stood in rows along the wall, and Linnea had been carried out in a chair with a blanket on her lap, smiling.

Hallvard stood at the gate in his long dark coat with the Alpha's key in his hand.

The second bell began to ring.

I met Anders's eyes across the yard.

He nodded, once, with my black key hanging on his chest.

Hallvard turned his lock.

It opened with a long iron groan.

The great bar slid back, and the gate swung inward on the dark road.

For a moment nothing came.

Hallvard lifted his hand and called out, warm and clear, "Welcome, friends."

Then the road was full of wolves.

They poured through the open gate, forty of them, thin and scarred and smelling of cedar smoke and iron.

The pack screamed.

I pulled my coat off and let the change take me.

It came up from my spine in a rush of cold fire, and my wolf rose white and enormous in the red light, bigger than anything in that yard.

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