The Beta I Trusted

s, and they stop to talk, and the talking goes on longer than the meeting did. I waited by the ston

t say anything when I came in. She pulled out a chair with her foot and pointed at it,

he skin around it was red and raised, and there was a dar

ll me it was a

know it w

ingers in the salve and worked it into the wound, and it stung so sharply that

dsmoke and the herbs in the salve, and out in the

me look at your shoul

ulder i

d to one living soul, and I know that because I can smell it from here." She tie

ave bee

y me. I have be

in two days. Then she leaned forward an

at you did not s

nothing

, and tonight you stood at the back of the clearing like a wolf who had been called to the stone instead of the one calling others

re they

the only wolf in the territory who was not in his own bed that night." She paused. "And that a wolf wh

ut my hand on the table and looked

them I was

opened the gate, and by the time the sun was up the whole kitchen knew it." She picked up the pot of salve and set it on the shelf

od up for me

whole pack," Marta said. "That is not the

ing about her work as though she had said nothing at all. She was wi

think happe

d the cloth and put it down. "And I think if you sit in this kitchen much longer, you w

at. I stood up and too

l you go?"

Toward F

osbach clan out." She opened a drawer and took out a small knife in a leather sheath and put it in my hand

in my pocket. "T

she said, "and not becau

it, and somewhere behind me in the pack house a door opened and a wolf said my name in a voice meant t

f attention that leaves no room for anything else. My wolf wanted to shift. I would not let it. A wo

ind had changed twice. Then I slowed and put my nose up a

, but it was there, and it led south and east through the charcoal

hinner and the ground sloped away toward the valley, and in

heard t

wl off to my right and a third far off to the left. Three voices, sprea

found m