Chapter 19: The Kinslayer

I did not have time to be afraid.

The gray wolf cleared the stone in one leap, and I threw up my arm.

A black shape hit him in the air.

Rhett had shifted somewhere in the crowd, and his suit lay in rags on the floor behind him.

The two wolves went down together in a roar of teeth and shredded wool.

Hiram rolled and came up first.

He had Rhett's shoulder in his jaws, and Rhett's cry went through every bone I owned.

My wolf answered it.

I felt her come up through me, fast and furious and certain, and I stopped trying to hold her.

The green silk split down my spine.

Bone slid, and fur came out white and silver along my arms, and the cold stone floor under my hands became four paws.

I was bigger than I had been on the ridge.

The round room seemed to shrink around me.

Someone in the crowd screamed my name, and I did not hear which name it was.

Three men in Blackwater leather shifted at the doors and moved to flank Hiram.

Before they took three steps the old keeper stood up on his bad knees with his cane raised.

"Stand down," he said. "In the name of the stone."

They looked at the stone, which was still glowing under the names.

They looked at the white wolf in the middle of the floor.

One of them sat down.

The other two turned and walked back out through the doors.

Then there was only Hiram.

He had thrown Rhett off, bleeding, and Rhett was getting up again, shaking his head.

The gray wolf's yellow eyes found me over his back, and I saw what he was.

He was a coward who had only ever fought people who would not hit back.

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