Chapter 14

Chapter 14

KADE

The elders' hall was packed. Every warrior who could fit inside was standing along the walls. The air was hot and thick and angry.

Vera sat on a bench near the fire, wrapped in a blanket. There were dark purple bruises all around her neck. My bruises. The shape of my fingers. Her leg was wrapped in bandages from the heel to the knee. She didn't look at me.

Garrett stood up.

"Vera of the Blackthorn pack," he said. "The challenge was ended. You were beaten. And you attacked the winner from behind after she spared your life. That is against the old law. It is a coward's act."

Vera's jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

"The punishment is exile," Garrett said. "Two months, beyond the northern border. No pack. No shelter. No help. You leave at sunrise."

Nobody spoke.

Then Garrett turned to me.

"And you, Alpha," he said. "You nearly killed a member of your own pack. A warrior who has fought beside you for eight years."

"She tried to kill my mate."

"She did," Garrett said. "And the law punished her for it. The law. Not your hands around her throat."

I didn't answer. There was nothing to say. He was right, and we both knew it.

A low murmur went through the crowd. It wasn't friendly.

"Eight years," someone said near the back. "Vera bled for this pack for eight years."

"She saved my brother's life at the river fight," someone else said.

"And he almost tore her throat out," a third voice said. "For what? For a pathetic human?"

The murmur got louder. Angrier.

Then a warrior stepped out of the crowd. I knew him. His name was Brand. Big, broad, with a scar across his nose. Vera's friend since they were pups. He walked right up to me, stopped a foot away, and looked me in the eye.

Then he spat on the floor at my feet.

The whole room went silent.

In my father's time, a wolf who spat at his alpha's feet would not have walked out of the room alive.

I looked at the wet mark on the wooden floor. Then I looked up at Brand. He stared back at me, breathing hard, waiting to see what I would do.

I could feel my wolf rising again. Hot. Wild. Ready.

But I thought of Elena's face in the ring. The way she had looked at me. Afraid.

"Get out," I said quietly.

Brand held my stare for one more second. Then he turned and walked out. Four other warriors followed him.

When the door closed behind them, the room felt colder.

I stood there alone in front of the fire. I had never felt so alone in my whole life. My own pack. My own warriors. I could see it in their eyes. Half of them looked at me like I was a stranger.

Then someone stepped up beside me.

Silas.

He stood at my shoulder, where he had always stood. He looked out at the room, calm and steady.

"Vera is my sister," he said. His voice carried to every corner of the hall. "I love her. I always will. But she broke the law tonight. She attacked a woman from behind after that woman showed her mercy." He turned and looked at me. "Kade protected his mate. Any one of you would have done the same for yours. He did the right thing."

The room was quiet.

Then, slowly, some of the warriors nodded. Not all. But some.

Garrett looked from Silas to me. Then he sighed and waved his hand.

"Go," he said. "All of you. Go home."

The hall emptied. When it was just the two of us left, I let out a long breath and put my hand on Silas's shoulder.

"Thank you," I said. My voice was rough. "I know what that cost you. Standing up against your own sister."

He covered my hand with his bandaged one and squeezed.

"You're my brother too," he said. "I'll always stand with you. You know that."

I did know that. In a world where half my pack was turning away from me, I still had him. That was something. That was everything.

"Go to her," Silas said. "She needs you."

I ran back up the stairs.

The moment I pushed the bedroom door open, I knew something was wrong.

Hilda was standing by the bed with a lamp in her hand. She was holding it close to Elena's side. Her face was gray. Her hand was shaking so hard the flame danced.

"Kade," she said. "Come here. Look."

I went to the bed.

Elena was lying very still. Her skin was pale and wet with sweat. Her breathing was too fast and too shallow.

Hilda moved the bandage aside.

The knife wound in Elena's side should have been closing by now. It should have been pink and healing, like mine. It wasn't. The edges were dark and swollen. And spreading out from it, across her pale stomach and up toward her ribs, were thin black lines.

Like cracks in ice.

My heart stopped.

"No," I whispered.

"Vera's knife," Hilda said. Her voice was barely a breath. "It was poisoned, Kade. Wolfsbane."

I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

"And not just any wolfsbane," Hilda said. She looked up at me, and there was fear in her old eyes. "Look at the color. The black. The way it spreads. I've only seen it like this once before."

She didn't need to say it. I already knew.

"It's the same poison," she said. "The same kind that was on the blade in the cellar. The same poison they used at Willowbrook."