Chapter 21: The Throne

Isobel's POV

His teeth closed on my shoulder, and the world turned gold.

It did not hurt the way a bite should.

It felt like a door opening in a house I had lived in for two hundred years and never known had a back room.

I felt his heartbeat inside my own.

I felt the whole ridge, a hundred wolves.

The Horn sounded.

It rolled in through the sea window.

Ronan lifted his head from my shoulder, his mouth stained red.

He did not move toward the cliff.

"It's quiet," he whispered. "Isobel, I can't hear him."

"Your father?"

"Only you."

On the ridge, the howl rose again, a hundred voices all at once, glad and savage.

We rose and dressed in silence and went out.

The eldest Elder stood on the ruined battery with the Horn in both hands.

It was a curved spiral of yellow-white bone as long as his arm, and he had six hunters at his back in silver mail.

He blew a third time, and nothing happened.

Ronan walked up the cliff path with his hands open.

I walked beside him.

Behind us, on the road, the wolves had come down off the ridge, and behind them the Court had come out onto the walls with torches.

All of it stood watching, wolf and vampire, and not a soul spoke.

"It should have worked," the eldest Elder said.

His voice shook.

"It worked on his father.

"It worked on every Alpha of that line."

"I'm not on my own," Ronan said.

I held out my hand.

The Horn flew out of the Elder's grip and across the gap and into my palm.

I held it a moment and felt the old voice inside it, thin and furious.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Blood Awakened, His Reign Ended from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.