Chapter 22: Hers to Govern

The Moon Hall was full before the sun went down.

Wolves stood in the doorways and in the windows, and they had hung the old lamps along the beams again.

The great doors, which Soren had broken, were new oak and not yet painted.

I walked in with Soren on one side and Gwen on the other, and the whole hall rose.

"Luna," the cook said, with tears running down her face. "It's been a bad few weeks without you."

"It's been a better few weeks for the larder," I said. "Look at you. You all ate."

She laughed and swatted my arm.

Joss waited at the head of the hall in his Alpha's coat.

He bowed to me, and I hugged him instead, and I felt him go stiff and then hug me back.

"I'm not doing this right," he said into my hair.

"You're doing it better than he did."

"The pack wants you home, Luna. They want you as Luna of Crescent Moon, and they'll vote it tonight."

"I can't be a Luna with no Alpha beside me," I said. "I'm another man's wife."

"Then be what we need and call it what you like."

The eldest elder tapped her cane.

"Regent," she said. "A Luna of the whole pack, who answers to the pack and to no mate."

"The old books have the word. Nobody has used it in two hundred years."

"And what would a regent do?"

"What you did for five years," she said dryly. "With a title, and without having to pretend a man was doing it."

A laugh ran around the hall.

"I'll do it," I said. "On two terms."

"Name them."

"Joss runs the pack as Alpha, and I never command a wolf who can't say no to me."

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