Chapter 23: The Haskins Seat

The Haskins Moon Rite was held at moonrise in the same hall where I had drunk the milk.

The long tables were gone.

Two hundred wolves stood in a ring on the bare floor, and the fire burned at the center.

I stood at the edge of it in my hunting leathers, with Rodrick beside me.

His arm was in a sling, and the stitches in his shoulder were my own.

My mother stood at my other side, and my sister stood in front of her.

None of us had said much on the drive.

My father walked into the ring alone.

He wore no suit tonight.

He wore the grey wool he'd worn to hunt in when I was small, with his sleeves rolled and his beard trimmed short.

He took the silver ring from his finger and held it up to the firelight.

It was the Alpha's ring of the Haskins pack, with three generations of names cut into the band.

"For twenty-two years I have worn this," he said. "I haven't deserved it for nine."

Nobody spoke.

"I killed a man and ran from him. I put this ring down tonight so the lie stops with me."

"I took a bank note over my own blood."

He looked at me then, and made himself keep looking.

"I'm sorry, Tegan," he said. "I'm not asking you to say anything."

"Good," I said.

A few people laughed softly, the way you laugh at a funeral when you're not sure you're allowed.

My father nodded.

He set the ring on the stone at the fireside and stepped away from it.

"Who speaks to the seat?" the old elder said.

"I do," said my mother.

She walked into the circle with her chin up.

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