This Time, I Won't Beg for His Mark novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The White Wolf's Seat

I stood up with my stitches pulling and walked to the dais.

Nobody had told me where to stand.

I stopped in the place where Lucan had said "Right on time" the week before.

"I take it," I said.

The hall let out a sound, long and low.

The eldest came forward with something in both hands.

It was my pack ring, plain steel, which I had set on his table.

"The council kept it," he said. "We didn't know why."

I put it on my right hand.

Then the old man started to kneel, with a hand on the table to steady himself.

"Don't," I said.

He looked up.

"Nobody kneels in this hall," I said. "Not to me, and not to anyone."

I looked at the pack.

"I spent eight years waiting for a man to decide I was worth keeping. I'm not going to build a pack where you wait on me."

A woman near the front started to cry, without any noise.

"I'm Valerie Wray, daughter of Ansel and Marian," I said. "I'm Alpha of Cold Spur by the oath and by the stone. If you want a place here, you have it. If you want to go, the gate is open."

Nobody moved.

Then the big man from the back of the hall walked down the aisle.

He had never once looked at me before the moot.

He stood in front of the dais with his cap in his hands.

"I was in the room the night they died," he said. "I was twenty. I stood by the wall and kept my mouth shut because Lucan's father looked at me."

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