Chapter 9: Grey

Niko read the letter standing in the doorway with the morning cold coming in around his boots.

He read it with his thumb under each line.

Then he folded it in half and in half again.

"Orvo," he said.

"How would he have a file from Marquette?"

"He's Council chair."

"He pays the pack's insurance."

"A doctor's bill goes through his office."

He looked at the paper.

"I should have paid cash."

"What does he want?"

"My seat. His daughter beside whoever sits in it." He said it flatly.

"If I don't step down, he reads this at the Frost Moon, to ninety wolves, in front of you."

"Then you don't step down."

"They'll vote me out."

"Then they vote," I said. "You said it yourself. It isn't a secret that makes a man unfit."

He stared at me.

Then he did something I didn't expect.

He laughed, a low surprised breath, and put his forehead against mine.

"Come on," he said. "Run with me."

"I can't."

"I know."

"My wolf won't come out. She hasn't in seven years."

"Then we'll walk to the edge of the ridge, and I'll run, and if she wants to come she'll know where I am."

I wanted to say no.

I went and got my boots.

The woods behind the lodge were bare birch and black spruce with a skin of frost on the moss.

We climbed until the lake lay flat and white below us.

Niko stripped off his flannel, his thermal and his boots without any fuss, and set them in the crook of a tree.

He stood naked in the thin morning light, huge and pale-skinned and hairy, and then the air around him folded.

A wolf stood where he had been.

It was black, taller than my waist at the shoulder, with a heavy ruff and a pair of eyes the colour of lake ice.

He looked straight at me.

His nose worked, and his ears came forward.

He took three steps, and put his face against my stomach.

"Hi," I whispered, and my hand went into his thick fur.

He huffed, soft, and pushed the top of his head up under my chin.

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