The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Silver Wolf

"How many?" I said.

Cormick stood at the window with the knife in his hand and the curtain pinched back.

"Twenty-two," he said. "Maybe more in the trees."

"You can count that from here?"

"I can smell it from here."

The howling had stopped.

That was worse.

I could hear them moving, a soft rush of paws on the needles, coming in from every side.

I picked the locket up off the table with my fingertips and threw it into the stove.

The lid clanged shut on it.

"That was your mother's," he said.

"She'd have thrown it too."

He didn't argue.

He crossed the room, took my face in one hand, and tilted it up to the lamp.

His hand was rough and very warm.

"Listen," he said. "They want you alive. Edric needs you breathing. They'll try to cut me out and drag you down the mountain."

"And you?"

"I'll hold the door."

"With a knife you won't draw?"

"With whatever I have."

Something hit the cabin wall hard enough to shake the shelves.

A claw dragged across the other side of the planks.

I heard a wolf snarl, and a man's voice outside, thin and eager: "Send out the girl, Guard, and we'll let you walk."

Cormick put his shoulder to the table and shoved it against the door.

"Calla."

"What?"

"You've done one claw. One. You've never shifted."

"I know."

"If you can't do it, you run out the back and down the gorge. Don't wait for me."

"I'm not running."

"Calla..."

"I'm not running," I said. "I've run all week. Nobody's chasing me off the first place that was ever mine."

He looked at me.

Then he nodded once.

The back wall splintered.

A grey wolf came through the boards in a shower of splinters and slammed Cormick into the stove.

Three more came through the front window.

I backed to the middle of the floor.

"Hesper," I said. "I need you. Now."

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