Chapter 20: The Moon Stone

The whole pack climbed the ridge in the dark.

Two hundred wolves, in coats and boots, with lanterns, and no one spoke above a murmur.

The moon came up over the lake as we reached the top.

It was full and white, and it laid a clean light across the Moon Stone.

I walked in the middle of the line between my grandmother and Torin.

He had the black glove on his left hand and the ledger inside his coat.

He hadn't let go of my fingers since the lodge.

Anders walked behind us.

He leaned in once and said, in my ear, "If this goes wrong, I've got the truck keys and a full tank."

"Thank you."

"I mean it. Say the word and we run."

"I'm not running," I said.

Gunnar was already at the Stone.

He stood at the foot of the slab in his grey Council cloak, with an elder on either side.

A candle burned in a glass jar in his hands.

Ingrid stood beside him in a white dress with her red braid pinned up and her cuff back on.

She had dressed for her own wedding.

She looked at me once, and smiled, and then looked away.

"Pack of Pinewater," Gunnar said, and his soft voice carried.

"We are here on the thirtieth night to hear a refusal answered."

He lifted the candle.

"One refusal was spoken in the great hall. One is owed an answer."

"Mine," I said.

"Yours, Miss Aaberg. And yours was made against an Alpha who is claimed."

A stir went through the crowd.

"By the old law," Gunnar said, "a claimed Alpha cannot answer a refusal himself."

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