Chapter 10: The Elder's Summons

Fenna had a plate of eggs waiting for me at ten o'clock, and an expression I could have framed.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Fine."

"The headboard in the east room is in two pieces. Your Alpha is out in the shed with a hammer, and he's whistling."

I put my face in my hands.

"He's never whistled," Fenna said. "Not once in the ten years I've known him. Eat your eggs."

I ate them.

I was starving, and I was lighter than I had been in three months, and every time I thought of the night before my stomach did something silly.

Torin came in from the shed with sawdust on his shirt.

He looked at me across the kitchen, and for a second neither of us said anything.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning."

"You're still here."

"I told you I'd say yes once." I pushed a chair out with my foot. "That doesn't mean I'm planning to bolt."

His whole face changed.

He sat down next to me and stole a piece of my toast, and Fenna rolled her eyes and refilled his coffee without being asked.

I could have stayed in that kitchen forever.

Then the porch guard rapped on the doorframe.

"Alpha," he said. "There's a car at the gate. It's a Council car."

The kitchen went quiet.

I put down my fork.

"Show them in," Torin said.

The woman who walked through the lodge doors was small and very old.

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