Chapter 28 · The Claim

The wax popped under my heel before any of them had the guts to bend down for it.

Twenty-three wolves in the council hall. Gray wool, gray faces, not one of them moving. They just sat there watching a rolled-up piece of paper on the flagstones like it might bite.

So I picked it up myself.

"Careful," Elder Maren said from the high table. "That seal's older than your contract."

"Then it's overdue." I cracked it with my thumbnail.

Yellow paper, soft as old skin. Cramped upright hand, the kind that died out a century ago, and the words worse than the hand.

*Issue conceived under a severed vow is unclaimed blood. Unclaimed blood is no blood. The abyss takes what the pack will not name.*

I read it twice. The second time, the hall got quiet in a way that told me all twenty-three of them had read it before it ever hit my feet.

"Say it out loud," I said. "I'm done with riddles."

Maren folded her hands. "You severed the bond at the altar. Witnessed. Recorded. A child conceived in a broken vow has no name in this pack."

"He's got a mother."

"He's got no *line*."