Chapter 23: Her Own Skin

The Alpha King looked at his daughter on her knees, and then at two thousand faces.

I watched a hard man decide, for the last time, whether to lie.

"Since the day she was born," he said.

His voice carried to the back of the slope.

"Her mother wept for a week. The physician told me what she was, and I swore to keep it."

"I hid it for twenty-five years."

"I'll answer for it now, in front of all of you, and I'll take whatever the clans decide."

"And a girl died of it," Mother Elder said.

"Yes."

"A girl of the Cardross."

"Yes," said the king. "I knew within the hour. I did nothing."

Nobody shouted.

It was worse than shouting.

Two thousand wolves stood in the red light and looked at the man they had followed all their lives.

Rowena moved.

I didn't see her get up.

I saw only the flash of a blade, a thin kitchen knife from under her sleeve, and her pale face coming at me over my sister's pelt.

She was going for my belly.

I never had time to flinch.

A grey shape hit her from the side and bore her down, and the knife skittered across the stone.

Dane held her to the dais under one great paw, teeth bared, with a growl that shook the boards.

She lay still and stared up at him.

He had never once been gentle with her, I realized.

He had only been quiet.

"Let her up," I said.

He looked at me.

"Let her up. She's going to stand."

He eased his paw away.

Rowena pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around the dais.

At her father, who wouldn't meet her eyes.

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