Chapter 8 — The Alpha Unsays It
No Alpha in the history of Ironridge had ever put his own hand on the oath-stone.
Alphas judged. The stone was for the judged. When Kade Sinclair crossed the dais and laid his palm flat against the moon-pale surface, the crowd's roar didn't die — it choked.
"Alpha." The eldest elder was on his feet. "This is not — there is no charge against you—"
"Then I'll speak without one." Kade's voice was quiet and it carried anyway, the way rockfalls carry. He looked out at his pack, at the hungry faces and the torch-smoke and the red moon over all of it, and then he did the thing that no one, not even Sierra, saw coming.
"Five years ago, on this ground, I judged Sierra Bennett guilty of poisoning my father." His hand pressed the stone. "I judged her without trial
