Chapter 15: Silver

Torsten's POV

Lowen had told me once that I never let anyone carry anything for me.

I had spent my whole life believing the reverse.

So when I picked up Linnea's coat from the gravel, I did the thing that cost me the most.

I told them where I was going.

"The Elder's honey house," I said. "Behind his cabin. It's the only building on this ridge with a cellar the pack doesn't use."

"I'll come," Beck said.

"No. Stay with Lowen and Stellan. If he took Linnea to pull me away from the three of you, I'd rather he found you together."

Lowen looked at me for a long moment.

"You're telling me," she said.

"I'm telling you."

"Then I'll tell you something back," she said. "If you aren't home by dawn, I come looking."

"Understood."

It was the first time anyone had put a limit on me and I'd felt cared for.

I shifted at the tree line and went on four legs.

The pine oil lay across the trail in a thick stripe, but it only hid Linnea's scent from a distance.

Up close she was there underneath, clear enough to follow.

Salt, freckles, the cheap vanilla she'd worn since she was fourteen.

I followed it to the Elder's cabin, around the back, and down the slope to the long low honey house.

Forty hives stood in the dark, humming with cold.

A scout sat on a stool at the door with a thermos.

I came out of the trees as a man, because a man can talk and a wolf can only bite.

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