They gathered the whole pack into the great hall to watch me release him.
That was pack law. A renunciation had to be witnessed. So they filled the hall with every wolf in Blackmoon, the same wolves who had filled the ritual clearing nine days ago. My father stood at the front in his Beta's finery. Damon stood on the dais where an Alpha stands. And Selene stood beside him in her stolen white, her hands folded, her eyes finding me the moment I entered and not leaving me after.
I walked down the center of it all with the Lycan King a step behind me, the silver ring on my hand catching the torchlight, and I felt every eye in the room move over me and understand, one by one, that the girl who had left in a torn dress at dawn was not the woman walking back in.
I stopped at the foot of the da
