The formal installation of an Alpha King was a ceremony designed over generations to accomplish several things simultaneously.
It established authority in the eyes of affiliated packs and visiting representatives. It confirmed the bloodline's legitimacy through the ancient ritual of the Alpha vow, spoken before a full assembly with the pack's elders as witness. It demonstrated the strength of the pack's internal unity. And it provided, in its pageantry and its symbolism, a moment that people would remember and reference when they spoke of the pack's leadership in the years to come.
Elowen understood all of this. She had been prepared for it from girlhood.
She had not anticipated how different it would feel to stand in it as the woman she was now.
She dressed in her own quarters without
