Chapter 4: Torches

Twelve riders came up the road with torches in one hand and jerrycans in the other.

I stood on the porch in my smock and rubber boots and counted them.

Behind me, thirty wolves in my blankets were waking up and reaching for knives they had left at the door.

"Nobody moves," I said without turning around. "Nobody shifts. That's my rule, and it stands."

"Dilys," Torquil said low, at my shoulder.

"I said nobody."

The riders spread out across the yard, and the lead horse stopped ten feet from my steps.

Fenella Quist sat on it in white riding breeches, with a torch in her fist and the emerald ring flashing.

"Burn it," she said.

Nobody moved.

"I said burn it. The Alpha wants rogues out of our territory, and this place is a rat's nest."

"It's a clinic, Fenella."

"It's a den of outlaws, and you're their whore."

The yard went silent.

Behind me I heard Bede's breath hiss in, and Torquil did not make a sound at all, which was worse.

I walked down the steps into the torchlight.

"You," I said to the nearest rider, a heavy man holding a jerrycan.

"Your daughter was born in a snowstorm. I came at four in the morning, and I stayed until she breathed."

His jaw worked.

"You," I said to the woman beside him. "Your mother's insulin comes off my shelf, and I've never sent a bill."

I went down the line.

I told one man I had cut his boy out of a bear trap.

I told another I had sat up three nights with his wife.

None of it was a speech, and I did not raise my voice.

I just said what each of them had asked of me.

I looked every one of them in the eye.

Fenella watched her riders go quiet one by one, and her face turned the color of her blouse.

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