Chapter 39

Sterling stood tall and awaited his fate without flinching. The picture of surrender and compliance. This was a fight he knew he wouldn’t win, and there was more than one way to fight, to win. He had faith that the truth would come out at his trial and he would be found innocent. Leila tried to keep that faith too and wondered, if he stood strong and proud while facing down the law, for her benefit as much as his. To reassure those he held near and dear in the bar that night that true justice would prevail in the end.

But Sheriff Thorne had a wicked glint in his eye, one that unsettled Leila and spoke of violence. One she knew all too well. He postured like a man with a small grasp of power in his hands, one who craved more, and was willing to get it at any means necessary. Men like Thorne were a plague to society, tale as old as time, and would be its ultimate downfall. Leila had known many of his kind among the wolves in the Blackwood Pack.

“Sterling Mount, you are under arrest for