Chapter 32 · Defying the Grand Council

The herald got the whole sentence out before the echo quit bouncing off the granite.

"By Council decree, Alpha Torin is stripped of rank."

Nobody in that hall breathed. I watched the silver torch flames lean sideways in the draft and thought, real calm and real stupid: I'm going to throw up on the Grand Council's floor.

Torin didn't move. That was the part that scared me. Hands loose at his sides, jaw set, like they'd just read him the weather.

Elder Maren laced her fingers on the table. "The bond was severed. The rite is void. Under the Blood Mark statute, a male who claims a woman outside a living contract holds no standing in this hall. And any child of that claim—"

"Say it plain." I stepped out past the rail before my knees could vote on it. "Any child of that claim is a bastard. Go on. You've been chewing on that word since dawn."

Hoyt's pen stopped moving.

Maren didn't blink. Sixty years of this room and she still had the face of a shut door. "The child is a ward of the pack.