Chapter 21: Silver Light

Kellan shifted in the air.

His black wolf met Vernon halfway, and the two of them went down together on the granite in a tangle of teeth.

Nobody breathed.

Vernon was bigger, fighting like he had nothing left to lose.

He raked Kellan's shoulder open, right across the mark I had put there, and the black wolf yelped and rolled and came up bleeding.

Kellan didn't bite back.

He tried to pin him, and I understood why.

He would not kill the man in front of me.

Vernon's jaws closed on his foreleg.

I stripped off my shirt on the run.

I didn't think about it.

My wolf came up through me in one long white rush, and the bones went easily, and I hit the rock on four feet.

I was huge.

I was bigger than Vernon, and every wolf on the mountain saw it.

I walked between them.

I put my shoulder against the grey wolf's chest and I did not growl.

I just stood there, hot and solid, and let him feel me.

His teeth let go of Kellan's leg.

The madness in his eyes wavered.

I leaned harder, and I felt Vernon's wolf through the fur, fifty-five years old and starving and afraid.

It wanted me close.

It had always wanted me close.

It stopped.

The great grey body shook once, and then it folded, and the wolf was gone and a middle-aged man lay on the granite with his arms round his own head.