Chapter 13: Show Your Hand

I didn't step back into the cabin.

Two years ago I would have.

Two years ago I'd have backed up until a wall stopped me, the way I did in the stone house.

I stood in his doorway with his book open in my hand and let him look at me.

"Get off my porch, Commander," I said.

"It's my porch."

"Then get off your step."

He laughed, low.

He came up one more stair.

The smell of him rolled over me, whiskey and gun oil and smoke from the mill he'd burned.

My stomach turned over once.

I let it.

I didn't move my feet.

"Give me the book, Sorrel."

"No."

"You don't know what you're holding."

"I know exactly what I'm holding." I tipped the page toward the lantern on his rail. "S.R. Five hundred. Received. Sister's compliments."

His face didn't change.

His gloved hand tightened on the rail until the wood creaked.

Down the trail, the right twin was still snarling.

Then the brush broke open and the heavy crashing came out into the light.

It wasn't one of Garth's wolves.

It was the lumber father, with soot in his beard and a bucket still in his fist.

Behind him came four young wolves from the fire, the same ones who'd stood around Garth on the riverbank clapping his shoulder.

The boy on the gate was one of them.

And behind them, limping, holding his arm, came the left twin.

His sleeve was torn and there was blood on his mouth.

"Commander shoved him off the trail," the right twin said, changing back on the path in front of them, naked and furious. "Into the rocks."

"He jumped at me," Garth said.

"He barked," said the right twin. "That's what he did. He barked."

The lumber father looked at the twins.

He looked at Garth.

He looked at me in the doorway.

"We followed the commander up," he said slowly. "To bring his coat. He left it at the fire."

Garth had his coat over his arm.

"I came back for it myself," Garth said. "Go home, all of you. This is a garrison matter. This girl has broken into my cabin."

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