Chapter 5: A Lock on Her Side

Blackmere's house stood on a bare headland at the north end of the coast, with the sea on three sides.

It was three hours from my father's gate, and I slept through the first two with Conrad's coat over my head.

I woke when the car stopped.

Rain was blowing sideways across a gravel yard, and a dozen people had come out of the big stone house to look at me.

They looked at the blood on my sleeve.

They looked at the coat.

None of them said a word, and every one of them looked at their Alpha.

"This is Linnea," Conrad said, getting out. "She is a guest of the house and she goes where she wants. Anyone who bothers her answers to me."

A woman at the front nodded and went to open the door.

Nobody smiled, and nobody sneered either.

I thought that was a good start.

He led me up a stair to a bedroom at the end of a corridor.

It had a narrow bed, a window onto the sea, and a heavy iron bolt on the inside of the door.

I tried it.

It slid easily, with a smooth, oiled click.

"I had it put in an hour ago," he said, from the doorway. "I sent word ahead from the road."

I turned and looked at him.

"You had an hour, in a car, with a bleeding woman, and you used it to call about a lock."

"You asked for a lock."

"I asked for one thirty minutes before that."

"Then it took me an hour," he said.

I almost smiled.

I did not let it all the way out.

"Sit," he said, and he put a first-aid case on the edge of the bed. "That bite needs washing. It's a wolf's mouth. It'll go bad."

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