Chapter 24: Her Own Pack

I named my pack on the Brask lodge lawn on the first clear night of March.

The elder came to witness it, with her stick and her silver crescent pin, and she carried no stone.

"A pack needs an altar," she said, looking around the frozen yard.

"This one has a porch," I said.

She almost smiled.

Wolves stood on the grass in the cold, Brask wolves in the front rows with Fenna.

Behind them stood wolves in Harlan coats, in ones and twos, who had driven over the border without being asked.

I saw the receptionist from the clinic.

I saw the vet who coughed.

I saw the Beta, with his scarred chin up, and three of his guards behind him.

The hound sat at my feet, at attention.

"Name it," the elder said.

"Hollow Ridge," I said. "For a stone that's gone and a name that was carved on it."

I looked at the lawn.

"Anyone who walks in is owed a plate. Nobody is ever put out for being the wrong kind of daughter."

Fenna sniffed loudly and blamed the cold.

"And the Alpha?" the elder said.

Torin stood beside me, and he didn't step forward.

"There are two," I said. "My mate is the Alpha of Brask Ridge."

"And you?"

"I'm the Alpha of Hollow Ridge. The pack lines run both ways."

"That's never been done."

"Then it hasn't been tried."

The elder looked at me for a long moment with her pale eyes.

Then she lifted her stick and struck the porch step, once.

"So it is," she said.

The whole lawn breathed out.

That night I bit him.

I did it in his room, with the door locked.

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