Chapter 27: Paid

I didn't see Jago shift.

One second he was beside the cellar doors with his arms folded.

The next, a near-black wolf with a grey muzzle hit Clive in the air, a foot from my face.

They went down on the cobbles together in a heap of torn tweed and fur.

The trestle table went over, and the ledger skidded across the stones.

Papers blew up the quay.

Somebody screamed. A pup started crying.

Clive was a big wolf, heavy and pale, but he'd never had to fight for anything. He'd always paid someone else to.

Jago had him on his back in three seconds.

Pinned flat, with Jago's jaws locked round his foreleg and Jago's whole weight on his chest.

Clive snapped once at the air and howled.

Jago's lips came back off his teeth.

I saw his jaws shift on the leg. I saw them start to slide up towards the shoulder, and the throat beyond it.

Every wolf on that quay knew what came next.

The young cellar wolves stepped forward.

Nobody was going to stop him, and half of them wanted him to finish it.

"Jago," I said.

I didn't shout it.

I walked across the cobbles until I was standing over the two of them. Close enough to touch the black fur on his back.

"Jago. It's done. We beat him on paper. Look."

The near-black head turned. Gold eyes found mine.

"Don't give them a reason to take you," I said. "I need you at that fire."

He held there for one long breath, with Clive's leg still in his teeth.

Then he opened his jaws.

He stepped off Clive's chest and backed away, stiff legged, until he was standing in front of me.

Then he shifted back.

The Alpha of the Trevail Pack was standing on his own quay without a stitch on.

The wolfen council and every Alpha in the South West were looking at him.

There was a short, interested silence.

Jago's aunt came through the crowd at a trot with a tablecloth off the cake stall and threw it at him.

"Cover yourself, for Goddess's sake. There's tourists."

He wrapped it round his waist. It had strawberries printed on it.

Somebody on the harbour wall started to laugh. Then the whole quay did.

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