Chapter 13: White

On Sunday, the Pack Hall held more wolves than the fire code allowed.

They stood along the walls and sat on the window ledges.

Children perched on their fathers' shoulders, and somebody had propped the side door open so the people in the lot could hear.

I could smell every one of them.

I could smell their fear of the Alpha, their hunger for a show, and the fried onions the diner had sent over in a foil tray.

Hattie stood beside me at the front with a grey wool blanket folded over her arm.

"If anybody looks, I bite," she said.

"You're not a wolf."

"I'll learn."

The council sat behind the long table with the white-haired chair in the middle.

Conall stood to the left of it, in his dark jacket, with his hands behind his back.

He had not touched me since we came in.

That was my rule for today, and he was keeping it, and I wanted to scream.

The Beta stood in the aisle with Lorna on his arm.

Braden sat three rows back, between two cousins, with his head down.

He had not slept either.

"Before the girl begins," the Beta said, "I would like to say something about the notebook."

The chair nodded.

He did not raise his voice, and I will give him that.

He spoke the way he always did, as if everyone in the room were his oldest friend.

"My son has behaved badly. He has shamed this family, and he will answer for it."

"But a boy who is ashamed will say anything in a crowded diner. He said what the girl wanted to hear."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Beta's Son Never Knew Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.