Chapter 10: What Odette Knew

I walked back into the sawmill yard at six in the morning with Garrick's blood dried on my sleeve.

Odette was waiting in the kitchen with the kettle already on.

She took one look at my face and pulled out a chair.

"Sit," she said. "Tea. Then you ask me whatever it is you've been chewing on."

I sat.

The mug warmed my hands, and for a moment I couldn't say anything.

"Odette, what kind of law stops a man from telling a ward something until she turns twenty-one?"

She set the pot down very slowly.

"Who said that to you?"

"Garrick."

"Ah." She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I wondered when that would come up."

"You know what it is."

"I know every old pack law, love. My mother read them to me instead of fairy tales."

She pulled out the chair across from me.

"There's one that fits. Do you want it plain?"

"Please."

"A guardian and his ward are kin in law. Not blood, but near enough."

"Once he signs, he is her father in the pack's eyes, forever. He can never take her as a mate."

I held very still.

"And?"

"There is a second law. A wolf who has found his fated mate in a girl under twenty-one may not tell her. Not a word."

"It was written long ago, to stop old men claiming orphans who had no one else to ask. If he breaks it, he loses his name and his seat."

The kitchen was very quiet.

I could hear the clock on the wall and the water ticking in the pipes.

"Say that again," I said.

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