Chapter 13: Pancakes

On the fourth morning at the lodge, my daughter put the Alpha of Hollowbrook in charge of the pancakes.

"No, you hold the bowl," Hazel said.

"I'm holding the bowl," Torin said.

"You're holding it wrong.

"Tilt it so I can see in."

She stood on a kitchen chair in her round glasses, with batter on her chin and a wooden spoon in her fist.

Torin tilted the bowl.

He had come back at dawn from three days of meetings with the guards who had stayed, and he had not said a word about the ones who had left.

He wore yesterday's shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

I stood at the far side of the kitchen island with a mug of coffee and kept the whole slab of counter between us.

I had decided that on the first night, and I kept to it.

"Do wolves eat pancakes?" Orin asked.

He sat at the table with a book open and his eyes on his father.

"When they can get them."

"Have you ever bitten anyone?"

"Orin," I said.

"It's a real question."

"Yes," Torin said.

"Who?"

"A man who put his hands on a girl who didn't want them there.

"I was seventeen, and I haven't been sorry about it once."

Orin thought about that and turned a page.

"Okay," he said.

"Does it hurt when you shift?"

"Every time," Torin said.

"Even now?"

"Less now," Torin said, and he frowned a little, because it was true and he didn't know why.

I knew why, and I did not say it.

From the moment I came into the room, a sound had started in his chest.

It was low and steady, and it rose whenever I crossed the floor.

I had been pretending for three days that it was the pipes.

"The pipes in this place are loud," I said now, to nobody.

Torin looked at me over the bowl.

"Those aren't pipes, Ingrid."

"The old lodge is drafty."

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