The Fire Wolf's Mate

en bag of pretzels on the dash, and a dent in the passenger door that looked like it had been there since bef

he folder,

th one eye on the road, and the truck went around the bends on the ridge road without

your signat

is not my

ctly like you

where the fire had skipped. "I have been signing evacuation forms with that same loop on the R for six years. Anybody who has ever b

been in t

, the Forest Service, the timber company's man, that documentary crew that came through in June, and a w

top of the ridge where the world opened up in every direction, and the valley lay belo

e said, an

was a house built into the slope with a low roof and a stone chimney and a yard of packed dirt. A county truck was parked at the gate, an

I could open the door. "Before we go down there. Th

the pac

g hall. This den up here is where the pack keeps its records and its sick and its old people. It is where we go w

ill in the pa

and after the fire she did not come down at all. This den is where she slept. This den is where she worked. And Owen has bee

u telling m

ant you to walk into it blind." He took his hand off my arm. "You do not have to go d

he door an

l distance away. The woman's name was Clara, and she was thirty three and she had dark hair pulled back and a bruise on her wrist that she

ought it was some kind of storm shelter. The house down the road is empty, and we have

," I said. "The people who own this land h

hink anybody

to find her a place at the fairgrounds with a cot and a hot meal, and that in the morning we were going to sort out what she needed. She started to cry. I gave h

inside was lit by a single bulb that somebody had wired to a battery, and the floor was swept, and there was a cot with a fold

pack house.

tebooks on the desk, the kind you buy at the drugstore for a dollar fifty. There was a photograph pinned to the wall, faded, of two girls standing in front of a white building with a

at the floor

t down again. I was not ready. That is the plain truth of it. I stood in my sister's last room with my sister's notebooks in front of me and I

s on th

n me since I was a girl, and he was standing on the porch of the den with his hands folded in

," he

we

came

ning. I have been in

ly and I told myself it was a memory. I am an old wolf and my nose is

saw the two of us standing there. I heard him take a brea

ght with you. She found something in the

for fifteen years and nobody has said a useful word to me in all that t

the no

ou rea

N

and something, Rhea. I have been waiting for you for fifteen years, and I have been dreading you for fifteen years, and I have a thing in my pocket that I have been carrying since th

y i

ster died. I have not said it out loud in fifteen years and I am saying it n

sound behind me. I

in," I

she did not want it. She took the rank because the pack needed a Luna and because she was the strongest wolf we had after your

said. "I have not shi

nce the night your sister died, and I have kept that rank quiet and kept it safe and kept it from the Council becaus

orward. "Owen,

oked at me. "Ask her what sh

y jacket pocket and the smoke of the valley in my nose and my sister's name in my mo

ou have in your

one set into the curve. I knew it. I had seen it in a photograph on my mother's dresser when I was a child, and I had seen it on my sister's neck in the

ld have given it to you, but you were not here. I have kept it for you and I have

eavy, and my palm closed around it, and the crescent pre

ose to the silver, and I felt her flinch,

emember my hands on the floor. I remember the smell of smoke. I remember Dane's name in m

ead them tonight, and come back to me to

the old man on the steps, and at Dane, whos

the rest?

looked up he was not looking at me. He was looki

r sister did not die in the fire.

the silver edge bit into my palm, and beh