Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Las Trampas

The Council of Five Packs met a month early for a parley, in a church so old its walls were made of mud.

Las Trampas sat on a ridge in the middle of nowhere, and the adobe church had stood there since before the first Alpha learned to wear a suit.

By law it was neutral ground.

No cuff, claw or Alpha order counted inside its doors.

Mateo parked the truck in a field full of other trucks, and I got out in a black dress Chela had hemmed for me the night before.

"You walk in beside me," he said.

"Not behind."

"I wasn't going to walk behind," I said.

"I know," he said, and his mouth twitched.

The nave was long and cold, with plank benches facing a table where four Alphas sat in their good coats.

The fifth chair was empty, and my father stood beside it, shaking hands with the whole room.

Aurelio Maldonado wore a pressed western shirt and the silver pack cuff, and his hair had been combed.

When he turned and saw me, his face crumpled with grief.

It was beautiful work.

He crossed the aisle with his arms already open.

"Sofia," he said, softly, loud enough for the benches to hear.

"My poor sick girl."

I didn't move.

He took my hands in both of his, and they were warm and dry and familiar, and every hair on my arms stood up.

"I've been out of my mind," he said.

"A father casts out a daughter and thinks the worst, and learns what it means to be alone."

"Come home.

"There's a healer in Santa Fe who treats late wolves, and I'll pay every penny."

Murmurs went around the benches, soft and sympathetic.

He had turned the cruelest night of my life into a sad story about a worried man.

"Take your hands off me," I said.

"Sofia," he said, hurt.

"You called me wolfless before two hundred people and put a price on my head," I said.

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