Chapter 16: The Run

They ran me on the night of the eighteenth, under a thin sliver of moon.

The whole pack gathered in the sawmill yard at ten.

Sixty wolves stood in the cold, and not one of them said a word.

The man with the split ear stepped out in front.

"You said you could run," he said. "Run."

"Where to?"

"The ridge and back. First one to the border stones takes the lead."

Dorian stood at the edge of the yard with his arms folded, and he looked at me and said nothing.

I took my coat off and handed it to Odette.

"If you lose, I'll still feed you," Odette said.

"I'm not going to lose."

I walked to the trees at the edge of the yard.

I stripped behind the cedar, hung my clothes on a branch, and put my good hand against the trunk.

I hadn't shifted since the Naming.

I let go.

It started in my spine.

The bones pulled and slid, my skin tightened and burned, and my breath went out of me in one long groan.

Fur came up over my arms, and the ground rushed toward my hands.

Then I was on four feet in the cold, and the world was suddenly loud and bright and full of smells.

I shook myself.

I was larger than any wolf in that yard, and I was the color of new snow.

I heard sixty of them draw breath.

The split-eared man shifted beside me, a heavy brown wolf with a torn ear.

He gave a short bark.

Then every wolf in the yard was moving.

I ran.

I went up the ridge road with my paws throwing frost, and the pack poured up the hill behind me.

My bandaged palm ached on every stride, and I ignored it.

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