Chapter 15: The Cliff

I shifted back where I stood, naked on the cold granite, with the wind taking all the heat out of me.

I didn't care.

Lyra hung over the drop in a blanket, one furious red fist waving at the sky.

"Stay there," Rhea said. "All of you."

Kellan had stopped three paces to my left, in his human skin again, with every muscle locked.

Dorian stood on my right, and he was shaking.

"Rhea," he said. "Give her to me."

"No."

"She's your niece."

"Don't you tell me what she is!" Her arm jerked, and Lyra wailed. "She's Elora's. Everything good in this pack is Elora's."

I lifted both hands, open.

"Rhea. Look at me."

"I'm looking."

"Not at them. At me."

Her green eyes swung over.

They were red-rimmed and wet, and I saw something in them I hadn't seen in the yard.

She was terrified.

"You can't take it back now," I said. "You said it in front of three hundred people. It's done."

"I know it's done."

"So what do you want from that ledge?"

She laughed.

"I want him to say it. His sister, out loud, once, like he means it, with his whole pack standing in a ring."

"He said it in the yard."

"He said it to you."

I turned my head and looked at Dorian.

"Say it," I said.

He stepped forward, one pace, and the wind pulled his coat.

"Rhea Whitcombe is my sister," he said.

His voice was raw, and it carried.

"My father's daughter. My blood. I should have said it to every wolf in the valley the day he died, and I was a coward. I'm saying it now."

Rhea's mouth opened.

For a second her whole body sagged.

I took a slow step toward her.

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