Chapter 23: The Bond

Tarn Valley holds its matings in the open, on the threshing floor of the oldest farm.

The whole pack stands in a ring.

I came to it on a morning of hard frost, in a plain grey dress and a shawl that smelled of cedar.

Caleb's mother had put it around my shoulders at her door.

"It was mine," she said. "My mother gave it to me. Nobody's worn it in thirty years."

"Thank you."

"He told us the whole of it." Her eyes were bright.

"You were welcome here the day he wrote us your name."

His father stood a little behind her, a big, quiet man, and said only, "Good shawl. Warm."

I laughed, and I cried a little, and Keely was behind me with a handkerchief already out.

The pack was waiting at the threshing floor.

Two hundred wolves of Tarn Valley stood in it.

My parents were in the front row, my mother's hand in my father's.

And beside them, to my surprise, ten or twelve Stonecrown wolves in grey, with the heavy, grizzled duty wolf at their head.

He bowed to me.

"They voted me in Thursday," he said, low, as I passed.

"At an open table, with the doors off. I'd as soon not be Alpha, but the lads insisted."

"You'll be good at it."

"I'll be honest at it. It's a start."

Caleb waited at the center of the floor in his dress coat with the silver collar buttoned.

He had cut his hair. He looked so nervous that I nearly missed my step.

"Rosalind," he said, as I came up.

"Deputy Commander."

"Not any more. I resigned Tuesday."

"Good," I said. "Then you've only the one title to worry about."

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