Chapter 6: Thin Ice

The moon rose over the ridge, huge and cold, and the whole pack went out to run.

I had not shifted in two years.

On the night of the circle, my wolf went to the back of my head.

She went silent.

I had stopped waiting for her, and I told no one.

Mavis found me in the yard anyway, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

"You're not coming," she said.

"Everyone goes on the first night of a claim.

"It's polite."

"Mavis.

"I can't."

"You haven't tried in two years," she said gently.

"A broken wolf can go quiet.

"She doesn't go away."

Nolan came out of the lodge in jeans and a shirt, with his boots in one hand.

He stopped when he saw us.

"I'll run with the patrol," he said.

"Stay near the front of the pack if you do come."

"Why?"

"Because the back is where the young ones play games," he said.

He said it too quickly.

I should have asked what games he meant.

The pack lined the yard, and one by one people dropped their coats and let the change take them.

I walked to the edge of the trees, took my jacket off, and pushed.

Nothing.

I pushed again, and I thought of the circle, and the white dress, and my mother's hand.

Pain went through me, hot, from the scar outward, and then my bones moved.

My wolf came up out of the dark.

I was on four feet in the snow, black from nose to tail, with a pale stripe down my left foreleg where the scar was.

The sound that came out of me was half a sob and half a howl.

I ran.

I had forgotten what it was.

The cold went through my fur, and the whole pack was a river of bodies going up the ridge.

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