Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Everyone Digs
By the ninth night at the ranch, I had been offered eleven ways to wake my wolf.
Nobody asked me about it, because that was the rule.
They just left things on the table.
A mason jar of moon-root tea turned up beside my plate on the third morning, with a note that said For when you want it, in Chela's square handwriting.
A big rogue with a sweat lodge behind his trailer offered to take me up there any time, no pressure.
Two women who ran the sheep sheds said, together and very gently, that they knew a challenge bite had worked for a cousin of theirs.
I said thank you every time, and I meant it.
They were kind to me, and they were all trying to dig.
I could see it in how carefully they didn't say the word.
At the end of the ninth day I stood in the barn at midnight, with the tack room door open and a lantern burning, and found I couldn't stop shaking.
I had spent thirteen years believing there was a secret door in me that I hadn't found.
Nine days of being treated like a person had made it worse, because people kept leaving keys under the mat.
The barn door opened behind me.
"Ranch rule says nobody comes looking for me at midnight," I said.
"Ranch rule is mine," Mateo said, "so I can break it."
He leaned in the doorway in his henley with his sleeves pushed to the elbow.
His forearms were scarred with old bite marks, thin white arcs of them.
I looked at the scars because I didn't want to look at his face.
"Do it," I said.
"Do what?"
"Whatever it takes."
"Bite me, break me, force a shift on me, I don't care."
"You're an Alpha, you've got to know how."
"I'm tired of being the only one in the room who can't."
I hated how thin my voice sounded.
"No," said Mateo.
It came out flat and instant.
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