Chapter 23: Mated Before Both Packs

We stood in front of both packs at noon, with the sun on the broken Stone.

Nobody had gone home.

Moonflare was on the west side of the ridge and Ironclad on the east, and between them was the open grass where Harlan had died.

Rorik held my hand and did not let go.

"Moonflare lost its warriors on the field," I said. "Ironclad lost a mother, and a river. Neither pack has a clean hand."

The ridge listened.

"I am not asking Ironclad to forgive my pack, and I am not asking Moonflare to forget its dead. I am asking you to stop."

A Moonflare warrior at the front, an older man with a scar through his brow, took one step forward.

He knelt.

Then the woman beside him knelt, and the man beside her.

The kneeling ran back through the ranks, until three hundred Moonflare wolves were on their knees in the grass.

I could not speak.

On the east side an Ironclad wolf stepped out.

It was one of the guards who had bound my wrists on the field, and he went to one knee with his eyes on the ground.

"I carried the rope that day," he said. "I'm sorry for it, Luna."

"I know," I said. "Stand up."

He did not stand, and neither did the rest.

By the time I could breathe again, Ironclad was kneeling too.

Rorik's hand tightened on mine.

"Alpha," Joren said gravely, from beside him. "I believe that's a yes."

Nessa laughed so hard she had to sit down.

That night, under the bright moon, we made the oath.

The Stone was cracked in two, and the halves leaned together at the top.

Nessa stood between them with a bowl of river water.

"Rorik Haldane," she said. "Alpha of Ironclad. Do you take this woman?"

"I do."

"Sabine Marrow, Luna of Moonflare. Do you take this man?"

"I took him in the first life," I said. "I take him in this one."

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