The Alpha Who Said Nothing

ears and along the pulse at my wrists, an

any wolf would look first. Three dabs, a smear across the collarbone, a wipe of the fingers on the rag I kept in my ja

r light was going soft and orange. On the far side, a Ford pickup sat at the top of the slope with its headlights off, and past the aspha

rty-one on the other side before the gate. I counted things when my hands shook. It was a habit my

changes of clothes, a hairbrush, a photograph of my mother, a box of

sin of piñon pines up in the hills behind me, and underneath that, faint, the water from the

d then I stepped do

years. It was dry in my mother's time, and in her mother's time, and in the time of the man who had signed the pact that had kept us from killing each other for most

en a shadow moved at th

h it. He came down slowly, boots crunching in the sand, and he did not say a word until he was maybe

go. I had not been close enough to notice much except that he was taller tha

the stories. A small straight nose, full lips, a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. He wore

low and plain, and he said my name

a," I

tle and then went back down, and for a moment he stood there with his head tilted like a man l

ing wolfsban

I was tired, and my feet hurt. "It keeps the scent dow

." He took a step clo

lls, Alpha. I didn't want to

arrive smelling li

d keep my scent down. It also kept my wolf quiet, which was the part I did not talk about. My

ct. One season, forty-two days, and then I go home.

looked at the suitcase in my hand, and then

wo days,

ht, if that's how t

om made up for you in the east wing of the pack house. Yusuf will bring you the pact text in the morning to sign. Pri

ought the whole point of the ri

of i

the r

not a

telling me not to go and the elders shaking their heads. No one had told me what the marking ceremony actually required, or what happened to a borrowed Luna who fail

nd flexed my fingers, and

t it for a

rap," I said.

d out and

ffness, a quick release, a cold look. That was how it worked between the packs. That was how my father h

not lik

in the desert behind my ribs. I felt it go up my arm and down into my stomach and settle there like a stone dropped in

ive seconds, six, and the sky went from orange to a soft bruised purple, and the wind pick

then another. His face had gone very still, and his eyes would not stay on m

and turned, and st

ill falling, and my heart was beating too fast, and somewhere deep and dark a