The Beta I Trusted

ld, and the voice that had said my na

she whispered.

e sap and cheap soap and nothing at all like Liesel, and because behind her, somewhere in the dark, there was a

nd on my sleeve and steered me around roots and hollows like a woman who had walked this path in the dark many t

hat I want to know is why the pack is saying the woman at the inn did it

ath. "How would

gave it to me." She folded her arms. "She was not in the bed when you left it. I saw her go down the

gainst my ribs. "

ou are the enforcer. You know what the pack will

hat they

the first place." She pulled her hood up. "I have said w

name,"

th giving you. Not

e and turned over what she had said, and the more I turned it, the less it fit. Liesel had not gon

my room with the tooth on the table until the sky went grey, and the whole time I kept

met at

on every side, and the law of the Schwarzwald Rudel is spoken beside it. There are marks cut into the stone from before the mines opened and before

hich was more than half the pack, and there were wolves I had not seen in years standing at the edges of the clearing with their

en and his black hair blowing in the wind, and h

im on the third night, as the law requires. Before that, I have two thi

ss the whole clearing. Every he

omplaint and without favor, and this pack owes him a debt it has never paid. I will not have his name dragged through the mud because he was the one who f

e weather of changes, and then he lifted his chin an

g," Dietrich said. "The

the sil

their way. But the Council is slow. They will come in a week, or a month, and by then the trail will be co

ring wen

ate. If he does not, then the Council will come and take the matter out of our hands, and we will all answer their questions about who was in the meadow and who was not."

illed with noise. Somewhere behind me a woman was crying. I stood at the back with my

colder by the hour. It was not an impossible task. It was a task that was just barely possible, an

d and stood in front of me wit

ard," h

hea

." He smiled, and it was a warm and open smile, and my wolf did not believe one