Chapter 17: The Challenge

Morven's POV

Nine days later the packs came to the Stone to watch me die.

They stood in rings among the pines, twenty packs deep, in coats and furs and bare feet in the snow.

Black Pine stood closest.

Tobin was in front, with his satchel on and his jaw set.

The oldest elder stood beside him with her braids freshly done.

Dane stood at the back, alone, in a plain brown coat with no collar.

Duncan stood at the foot of the hill, behind a line of Crown guards.

His hands were shoved deep in his coat pockets.

He had told me that morning that he would keep them there.

I'm here, he said, in my head. I'm not moving.

I know.

I won't say good luck.

Good.

I love the way you walk into a room, he said, and I felt him mean it.

Then I took off my jacket.

The Cinder Ridge alpha waited at the far side of the Stone, already in his skin.

He had been a big wolf in the hall.

As a wolf he was a brown wall of muscle, with a torn ear and a gray muzzle.

He stood nearly as tall as a horse.

A woman near me whispered, "She's got no chance."

I let the wolf come up.

It started in my spine.

I dropped to all fours on the cold ground and felt my bones fold.

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