Chapter 4: Cinder Creek

"Tell her no," Kurt said quietly. "Tell her I'm not food."

"Sorrel," I said out loud, feeling ridiculous. "He's a friend. Sit."

My wolf stopped pacing inside my head and lay down, and the second heartbeat went faint.

Kurt breathed out and started the car again.

"It happens after a cut," he said.

"Your wolf is wide open, and I'm the nearest Alpha. It closes in a few days."

"Is it always like that?"

"I've never met a wolf who asked permission to bite me."

"She's never been unbonded before."

"Neither has anyone I know who survived it standing up."

I looked out the window so he wouldn't see my face.

Cinder Creek was a long gravel road with a sawmill and a dozen houses in a row.

A big timber lodge stood at the end, with smoke coming from three chimneys.

It was smaller than Harrow Ridge and it looked a lot warmer.

Kurt parked and came around to open my door, and I got out too fast and my knees buckled.

He caught my elbow and held it exactly as long as I needed him to, and not a second longer.

"Soup first," he said. "Then a bed. Questions in the morning."

Wolves came out onto the porch to look at me.

Nobody stared.

A broad woman in a flour-dusted apron took one look at my dress.

"Bath," she said. "Now. And then you eat everything."

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