His eyes lock on Cassidy.
He shifts.
The change is fast, the dark brindle wolf hitting the ground in a single fluid motion, and he launches toward her without a sound. No snarl, no warning—a direct charge aimed at her throat, the fastest route between point A and point B, and every wolf in the clearing moves a half-second too late.
I move faster.
The shift tears through me like a current, my wolf all too eager to appear and protect his mate, my body changing in response to the wolf's urgency, and I'm airborne before Gideon covers half the distance.
The collision when I hit him is brutal and complete—my shoulder driving into his ribs with all of my forward momentum, knocking the air from him, redirecting his body from its line. We crash together into the nearest ritual stone, the impact reverberating up through my legs, and I feel one of his claws catch my shoulder as we come apart.
He tries to rise to his feet, gasps, and collapses on the stone again.
I stand between him and Cassidy until I’m sure he’s not getting up.
The clearing is silent.
I shift again to two legs, slowly enough to make it clear I'm choosing to rather than forced to, and turn toward Cassidy. She's three feet behind me, breathing hard, hands at her sides, taking in the clearing and the assembled pack and the aftermath of the last thirty seconds with the rapid, systematic attention she applies to everything.
"Are you hurt?" I ask, touching her shoulders and face, as if to assure myself she’s there and safe.
"No." She looks past me toward Gideon, who has shifted back as well and leans against a perimeter stone with blood on his temple from the impact. "I ran here from the eastern ridge. Kieran had me in a hunting cabin—the maps are there. The ammunition caches. Everything."
"I know." I hold her gaze. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"
"Alden." Her voice drops slightly, the sarcasm stripped out of it for once. "I'm fine. Deal with this."
Rigid, I turn on my heel.
Brynn stands exactly where she was before, expression unchanged, staff planted.
Around the outer ring, the pack watches with the collective stillness of a hundred wolves simultaneously deciding what to make of what just happened.
Several council members speak quietly to each other.
A few younger enforcers move closer to the center stone, not at my direction.
Gideon stands with his jaw set and blood drying at his temple, and what's gone from his expression is the rehearsed composure. What remains is something harder and less calculated.
"Attempted harm to the Alpha's mate during the ritual binding period," Brynn says, her voice carrying to the entire clearing without effort. "The council notes the action."
Gideon's eyes cut to her. "She interrupted the invocation?—"
"She arrived," Brynn says. "As any pack member may. The invocation was complete before she spoke." She looks at him with the flat amber expression, showing no bias. "You shifted against an unarmed human within the ritual boundary. That is recorded."
Gideon says nothing.
Ciaran appears at my left shoulder, voice pitched low. "I need five minutes with you before the trial begins."
"Not now."
"Alden." His tone sharpens. "Kieran is still in the field. And there's something you need to know about what Cassidy found in that cabin before you step into that ring."
I look at Cassidy. She nods once—she already knows what Ciaran is about to say, or something close to it.
"Two minutes," I say.
25
