Chapter 12: The Kneeling

The gold went out of the air, and the Stone went quiet.

I stood in the middle of the slab with my torn dress and my healed ribs, and I could feel the First Wycliffe standing up inside me, tall and calm.

Four hundred years of alpha, and it fit me.

It did not feel like being possessed.

It felt like coming home.

Every wolf at the edge of the circle had gone silent.

A few of the old ones were already on their knees.

I had not asked them to be.

Their wolves had simply made the choice.

Roderick stood three paces away with the Ivorymoon blade hanging from his hand.

He was shaking.

"Elowen," he said. His voice cracked on my name. "Stop it."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Stop."

"I'm standing here."

He lifted the sword with both hands.

It trembled so hard the point drew small circles in the air.

"I am the Alpha of Greyhollow," he said. "I am the war hero of Hollow Ridge. I took you in when you had nothing."

"You took my money."

"I am your mate!"

"Then look at me."

I took one step toward him.

The whole ridge heard his breath catch.

His eyes jerked up, and for the first time since he had come home, they locked with mine.

The gold in them met the gold in mine.

His wolf, behind his eyes, looked at the thing I was.

I saw it.

It was a big dark wolf, thick through the shoulders and scarred along its flank.

It saw me, and it dropped to its belly.

Roderick cried out.

He had not chosen it, and he could not stop it.

His knees buckled.

The sword rang against the stone, and he went down on both knees in the middle of the Challenge Stone, in front of two hundred wolves.

He tried to rise.

He got one foot under him, and he fell again, heavily, with both palms flat on the slab.

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