Chapter 15: Brant's Claim

Brant crossed the hall.

Wolves moved out of his way without being asked.

He stopped at the foot of the dais, three feet from me, and breathed in with his eyes shut.

"It's you," he said. "It was always you.

The night I bit you, the whole room smelled like rain.

Then it was gone by morning, and my father said I'd imagined it."

"Your father said that," I said.

"He said you were empty. He said Sylvie was the real thing."

"And you believed him, because it was easier."

His eyes opened.

They were wet, and I felt nothing about it at all.

"I was wrong," he said. "Maxine, I'm taking it back."

"You can't."

"I withdraw it."

"Brant." I came down one step. "I said the words at my wedding.

I accept your rejection. The mark died on my shoulder in front of three elders.

There's nothing left to withdraw."

He reached for my wrist.

He never touched it.

Elias was suddenly standing between us, though I had not seen him cross the hall.

He did not raise a hand.

He only stood there, six foot three of black-haired quiet, and Brant stopped.

"She said no once already," Elias said.

"She was lied to."

"So were you. It doesn't change her answer."

Brant looked past him at me, and then around the hall at three hundred wolves who had just learned what had been done to me.

"My father will file it," he said hoarsely. "A rejection built on fraud is void.

He'll take it to the council this afternoon."

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