All Chapters of To Kill Alpha Roderic: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

- RAVENA"He's a security risk, Edith. Look at the way he moves. That's not rogue scrap; that's trained martial form."I kept my back pressed hard against the rough exterior logs of the elder’s council cabin, my knees dug into the snow. The heavy wool of Chief Rod’s coat did a decent job of masking my breathing, but my heart was doing double-time against the tight linen wraps flattening my chest.Inside, the fire was popping, and the old voices were loud enough to bleed right through the timber seams."Kael’s nose is broken in three places," a dry, raspy voice spat. That was Torin, one of the senior camp elders who looked like he’d been chewed up and spit out by a bear fifty years ago. "The boy didn't just defend himself. He targeted the joint. He knew exactly where the ghost-blood weakness was. You telling me some random stray from the south just happens to know how to cripple a northern shifter?""I'm telling you he's fast, Torin. There's a difference," Edith’s voice shot back. She

- RAVENA (ZAVIER)"If you drop your left shoulder like that again, I’m going to throw you off the eastern ridge," Edith snapped, her wooden staff coming down hard against my thigh."Son of a..." I cut myself off, stumbling back across the slick sand of the hidden training clearing. I shook out my leg, glaring at her through the dirt smeared across my face. "I didn't drop it. The ice shifted.""The ice doesn't give a damn about your excuses, Zave," she said, spinning the staff between her fingers effortlessly like it weighed nothing. She didn't look tired at all. Me? I was sweating through my linen wraps in sub-zero weather, my chest heaving as I tried to keep my gravelly voice from slipping. "The selectors aren't going to look at the ground," she snapped. "They’re going to look at your throat. Again."I gritted my teeth, raising my fists back up into the guard she’d beaten into my muscle memory over the last three weeks. My knuckles were scraped and bleeding, the skin split and froz

- RAVENA"You're going to freeze your small southern ass off if you keep standing that close to the edge," Chief Rod said.I didn't move. The wind up here on the highest ridge was harsh, like someone throwing handfuls of tiny ice needles straight into my skin. I pulled the collar of his massive grey coat up over my chin, the scent of pine and old iron hitting my nose. "I'm fine, Chief," I rasped, forcing the gravel back into my voice. My throat felt like sandpaper from keeping up the Zavier routine all morning, but I couldn't slack off now. Not with him sitting two feet away. "It’s a nice view. If you like rocks and misery.""It's a tactical position," Chief Rod muttered from beneath his deep hood. The reinforced leather mask covered everything below his eyes, making the words sound dark and heavy. His dead legs were buried under three layers of black wolf furs, but the sheer heat coming off his frame kept the snow around the iron wheels of his chair completely melted. "From here,

- RAVENA"If the stray loses, the food crates stay in the eastern block, and he packs his shit by sunrise," Torin spat, crossing his thick arms over his chest. He stood at the edge of the clearing, surrounded by half the elders and a crowd of broad-shouldered ghost-shifters who looked like they hadn't smiled since the last turnip harvest."And when he wins?" Edith asked. She was leaning against a timber post, casually cleaning her fingernails with a small hunting knife. She didn't even look up."He won't," Eli grunted from behind his grandfather, his chest puffed out like a prized rooster. He kept rubbing his knuckles, grinning at me with a look that promised a quick trip to the burial ditches. "Kael was soft. I’m not."I stood in the center of the slushy ring, shivering slightly in my thin linen tunic. I’d left Chief Rod’s heavy grey coat on the bench next to Edith. My hands were wrapped in tight, rough strips of canvas, the cold air biting at the split skin on my fingers. Underneat

- RAVENA"You're dragging your feet again, kid," Chief Rod growled, the wheels of his heavy chair crunching over the frozen shale."I'm not dragging my feet, Chief. I'm trying not to slip on three inches of black ice while hauling two hundred pounds of dead weight uphill," I rasped back, my hands gripping the frozen iron handles behind his head. Every muscle in my chest was screaming. The stitches Rayna had put over my left brow yesterday were throbbing painfully, but I kept my shoulders slouched, digging the toes of my boots into the slick trail. "Where the hell are we going anyway, Chief? The lower passes are the other way.""We're taking the high traverse," he said flatly. The volcanic heat washing off him was so thick it was melting a path through the hanging icicles as we passed beneath the pine canopy. "Stop complaining. It builds character.""It builds a hernia," I muttered under my breath.We crested a sharp ridge, emerging onto a narrow, secluded stone shelf tucked behind th