I Will Never Be Yours novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Ring

Sorcha's POV

The quarry ring at noon held a thousand wolves and not one sound.

The north stood along the east rim in green, and Ironcrest along the west in grey.

Half of my people leaned on one another's shoulders, still grey in the face from the ale.

They had come anyway.

Caspian stood at the edge of the ring with his hands behind his back, and he did not look away from me once.

I walked out into the red dust in a plain shirt and trousers with my feet bare.

The Stonegate Alpha was already there, stripped to the waist.

He was a head taller than any man I had ever fought, thick through the chest and neck, with old white scars from collarbone to belt.

"Luna," he said. "You look pale."

"I slept well."

"Pity. It's the last you'll have." He cracked his neck from side to side. "The old law says to yield or go down. I don't take yields."

"Then don't."

The bent old woman from the Council raised her cane at the rim.

"Heir of Ironcrest and challenger of Stonegate," she said. "Let the Moon see you."

I let go.

My wolf came up through me fast and whole.

I had shifted alone in this pit only the night before, and I had thought it would hurt.

It didn't.

Every bone shifted and settled, and the world turned loud and bright and full of smell.

I smelled the clay, the torches, a thousand bodies, each with a scent of its own.

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