Mated to My Hunter

l hounds were on the ice and the Alpha was dead in his bed, and the only road out of that hollow was

e and the wolves. She did not stumble. She did not ask where we were going. She walked with her chin down and her hands loose a

a cot and a shelf of rope and a chest of tools, and under the floorboards, in a hollow I had cut myself with a chisel, I kept the things that

"If the hounds come this way I'll send word by Tamsin. She'

nts everyth

ere. She does not go near the pack house. Ostrander has called a gathering for dawn and he has already told the pack that you put a needle in the Alpha's neck

u belie

cil chain in your boat. I believe you have been running cargo under a false manifest for five years and I have l

soft, steady sounds in the new snow, and then the shed was quiet except for the

snow off her boots. Her hair had come loose from behind

. "You're white as

ands went to the stove and she held them there. The red lines from the si

The one in the Council p

t me. "Why do y

e who put a needle in your neck

at it. He knew every ore road in the territory and every clerk who signed for a shipment. Eight years ago a Council audit found forged manifests in his

d he con

d her hands over in front of the stove. "He told me once that he signed the confession to keep me out of it. That was th

asure of the coffee I had made that morning and kept in a stone b

said. "Not the order. The co

A man in a Council coat came up to me and asked me to step into the receiving shed to sign a manifest. I remember the coat and

u see h

rey with the silver braid

be any clerk in

a silver chain that fits a warden's wrists. A clerk does not have the keys to a receiving

ad been in every pie on the north shore for thirty years. He had been at the pack house when I left

a face," M

ot of faces

hought of something and you ar

stove and put a stick of birch in on the coal

e at Iron Bay. He came to the pack house three days ago and he asked me about a coffin on my r

hink he pu

. Whether it was you is a quest

f me, and she was close enough that I could see the green of her eyes had

I smelled the pine and the pitch and the rope, and under it I smelled paper. A lot of

tte

e let

rothe

light with her mouth open, and her dimples sh

ve a br

died on the ice four years ago in a storm off the point. He was carrying a load of mail for the Council and the ice op

he let

twice." I picked up the poker and turned the birch over. "When he died I went through his things and I found the ledger under his mattress and I read it and I found some things in it that

eyes did not

me," s

shoul

and blamed you for it. Because I have a bond to you now that I did not ask for and cannot afford, and I would lik

g is the thing nobody else knows about. But she stood there with her hand out and the stove glow on her

. It was a cracker tin, red once, now mostly rust, and the lid had a picture of

ys had written in it with a stub of pencil in a small, neat hand, and

turned the pages one by one, and her finger m

. Her hand went

s it?"

cold. "The load he was carrying for the Council. It was not mail. It was a sealed crate with a Co

red a

he pack he was carr

r page and stopped again. "Ewan. The man who si

ho

e and her green ey

rand

t with my brother's handwriting under Maren's finger and the name of the man wh

hed door. Three slow knocks a

n's k

box back under the floor and the board back over it, and I had t

blue eyes wide and her breath going in and out in short white puffs. She had her

h with the Alpha's blood on his shirt and he is telling the whole pack that he found it in your shed. He's got a sil

Maren, who had come up behind me

hanged. Her mouth op

the woman with the Coun