Chapter 13: Mine by My Word

The hall was so quiet I could hear the lamps hiss.

Soren looked down at me, and his eyes were gold and wet.

"Say it plainly," he said. "Say it so the whole pack hears. I won't take a word you didn't mean to give."

I turned around to face three hundred wolves.

"My name is Rhiannon Stanhope," I said. "I was your Luna for five years, and I am nobody's wife."

"Today I claim Soren Hallowell as my mate. He didn't take me. I chose him."

I pressed my left wrist flat over his heart.

The silver lines flared up my arm, and they crossed into him through my palm.

Soren made a sound I felt in my own chest.

A silver crescent burned onto his skin above his heart, and then settled into a pale mark.

My collarbone, where Cade's mark had gone cold, turned warm.

"Mate," Soren said, hoarse. "Mine."

"Yours," I said. "Because I said so."

Nobody in the hall moved.

Then the stout cook let out a whoop, and the hall broke.

Wolves stamped and howled, and the war horn blew itself out in the rafters.

Gwen, free of her gag, was laughing and crying at once.

"No."

It was a raw, cracked voice, and it came from the board.

Cade had pushed himself up on one elbow.

His face was the color of old ash, and his lips were bluish.

"She's my wife," he said. "By Alpha right, a Luna cannot claim another while her Alpha lives."

"Cade," Joss said quietly. "Lie down."

"I am the Alpha of this pack."

He got one foot to the floor, then the other, and stood swaying with his hand on the table.

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