nd Clara rode on my back again with the lantern held out to one side and her chi

stood there a moment with her hand on my arm, and

walk

walk

la

e dark. I have been told by the healer's books that I am the only thing that can save your wolf. I have been made to swear an oath in a cold chapel by an Alpha who watches me from his window l

d her, and I stood on the shingle until the light of it was gone behind the wall of the schoolh

. That was the first wrong thing. He had poured for me in that study a hundred times since we were

e every

cent mark on it and the stone that hummed and the voice that came out of Clara's mo

aid 'not yet

tongue and then 'not yet

ay the thr

not cat

e was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and I noticed for the first ti

y them. I to

called it. A piece of the first Alpha left in the stone on that island, and it comes to a wolf who shifts there for the first time, and i

What is

been allowed inside, and they send a messenger once a year to count our wolves and our territory and to ask questions I do not like. They believe the fragments are a danger. They believe a pack that keeps one should be broken up and its wolves given to other Alphas

s why t

who cannot shift has found a mate in a late bloomer with old blood, they will not wait for their soldiers. They will send thei

keep i

. Properly. The pack house at noon. Agnes will put on a spread and the Gamma will present her and I will name her a guest of the pack under my p

not want

ool." He drank. "And Elias. Stay clos

tal in my mouth from the arm that was still burning and the rope in my chest that had been pull

ou what she said about her father and the silv

not tur

." His voice was even. "If Clara's father carried it out of this village, then her father kno

r clinical way, and I heard her voice saying it now. But I did not

xt day Clara c

Alpha said. Marcus stood at the head of the table and gave a speech about the school and the village and the old families of the coast, and he told the pack that Clara was a guest under his protection and that any wolf who harmed her or her school would answer to him.

ver the rim of it and Clara watched her back, and I stood between them with my bad arm at my side

ut Marcus drew me a

senger from the Council is due in the village any day now

erst

ay have not come back. Their boat is on the shingle at the point, turned over

p and a long tear in the planking, and the oars were gone, and there was a sme

es,"

a st

orm, Marcus. Lo

boat and crouched and looked at the sand on t

a voice I did not kno

n form, and he had been in the water some days and the fish had been at him and his hair was plastered dark across his face. Someone had carved

id Cr

hands were fists and he said, very quietly, "I have seen him

rom the harbour with a silver cup in his coat, and I felt the rope in my chest pull tight and the silver in my arm burn, and I understood that whatever had come up out of the sea