The Alpha’s chair was carved from a single piece of ironwood. It had been in the Silvermere assembly hall for over a century, dark, massive, worn smooth by the backs of six successive Alphas. Cassian had sat in it for thirty years. His father before him for twenty. So on, back through generations of strong men who’d ruled this pack with iron and tradition. I sat in it now, it fit. Not perfectly. The seat was too wide, the armrests too high, built for wolves who were broader, bulkier than me. But the power that came with it, the weight of it, the meaning of it, that fit like it had been waiting. Three hundred wolves filled the hall. Standing room only, same as the assembly three days ago. But the atmosphere was entirely different. The hostility was gone, replaced by something more complicated, wariness, curiosity, cautious hope, the residual awe of having watched their new Alpha shatter a standing stone with her bare hands. Valtherion stood to my right. Not sitting, stand
Magbasa pa