Wren
The Council convened at midday, and the whole wolf world came to watch.
The slopes of the bowl were black with people, thousands now, territories I'd never visited, banners I didn't know. The nine Alphas sat their carved crests around the great stone table, Isolde at the eldest seat with a sealed iron case before her, and I stood in the center of the ring in the red dress forty women made, with my three mates one pace behind me and my brother behind them, and the wind moved over all of us like the Goddess taking attendance.
It began badly, because it was designed to.
The seat that had raised the objection belonged to Alpha Corvin of the Blackmere Pack, a lean, silver-tongued man of sixty who rose with the sorrowful air of someone forced to do an unpleasant duty, and spent an hour
