A Pack of Their Own novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Four Names Again

Back at Blue Crescent, Mom smooths everything over, Winona asks about Dunmore Ridge, and she half-shifts at dinner; Dad tells her to shift again and leave.

Mom set a plate of roast chicken in front of the younger twins before she even sat down.

"Eat up, my brave babies. After yesterday you deserve seconds."

The dining room at Blue Crescent was full, the way it always was on Sundays.

Dad sat at the head of the table and Mom at the other end.

The four kids filled the long sides, and I had the corner by the kitchen door.

Nobody had mentioned my shoulder since we got home.

Nobody had mentioned that I had pushed a stray off the younger twins either.

I took a roll and a piece of chicken from the plate nearest me.

"You're so quiet tonight, sweetheart," Mom said, smiling down the table. "We were all so worried about you yesterday."

"You didn't come to the infirmary," I said.

"Well, you were with the healer. It would have been crowded."

It was the same easy voice she'd used with the photographer.

I had just realized that her voice was always easy when she was lying.

One of the older twins leaned back in his chair.

"Honestly, Winona, you didn't have to make a production of it.

A stray comes at the steps and you throw yourself at it. Everybody was looking at you."

"It was going for the kids."

"Dale's guards had it."

"They were forty feet away."

"You wanted the attention," my sister said, pushing a bean across her plate. "You always do."

"Enough," Dad said.

The whole table went quiet, and he did not say who it was meant for.

Across the table, the younger boy was staring at his plate.

He kicked my ankle gently under the table, once, and when I looked at him he mouthed, Thanks.

I felt something loosen in my chest.

Then I put my fork down.

"Dad. Who lives at Dunmore Ridge?"

The room stopped.

I watched it happen. Dad's hand went still on his water glass. Mom's smile stayed exactly where it was.

"Where did you hear that?" Dad said.

"It was on a note. The healer at Moon Rise gave it to me."

"Honey, it's a town," Mom said quickly. "A tiny, boring town in the mountains. Nobody important lives there."

"The note said to ask Dad."

"Then you've asked," Dad said. "And the answer is nobody."

"Somebody in this family used to live there. Didn't they?"

I had no idea why I said it. It just came out.

Dad pushed his chair back, stood, and left the room without a word.

Mom put her napkin on the table.

"Your grandfather passed a long time ago, Winona. We don't talk about it. You've upset your father."

Grandfather.

I had been told he was dead since I was old enough to ask. I had never been told where.

"Where is he buried?" I asked.

"Winona."

"Where is he buried, Mom?"

My voice came out wrong. Lower, with a rumble under it.

The older twins stopped chewing.

Something hot climbed up my back and into my arms.

I looked down and saw my hand around the fork.

My fingernails had turned black and thick, and the fork had bent double in my grip. The tines had gone into my palm and I had not felt it.

The chair under me cracked.

Somebody pushed back from the table and knocked over a glass.

"Mom, her eyes," the younger girl whispered. "Mom, her eyes are doing something."

I could feel them. They were gold at the edges and they were burning.

"Winona, stop it right now," Mom said, and her voice was high and sharp, not easy anymore.

"I'm not doing it."

I couldn't make it stop.

My wolf stood up inside me, and she was furious.

It was not the twins she was angry at.

It was every smile at that table, every missing name, and every time somebody had told me I'd hate it.

Dad was back in the doorway.

He crossed the room in three strides, took my wrist in his big hand and pressed down hard on the nerve.

The fork dropped. My nails shrank back, and the heat ran out of me all at once, leaving me shaking in a broken chair.

Dad's face had gone white, and he was not angry. It was the same look he'd had in the infirmary doorway.

"Everyone out," he said. "Now."

They went, the younger twins last, looking back.

Mom stayed in the doorway until Dad shook his head, and then she left too.

The room was very quiet. A glass was still rolling slowly across the table.

"Dad," I said. "What am I?"

He let go of my wrist. His hands were steady, but his face had gone gray.

"You're a girl who will not do that again," he said. "Not in this house, not in front of this family, and not anywhere another Alpha can see."

"I can't control it."

"Then learn to." He leaned down until we were eye to eye. "If you shift again, Winona, in any form, you leave this pack."

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