Chapter 11: Gold Eyes

The man behind me let go of my throat.

"Alpha eyes," he whispered. "Alpha eyes, gods, she's got the ring."

I didn't know what he meant.

I only knew the silver bolt had dropped away from my skin, and that every Pass Man in the room had taken a step back.

Then the door crashed in, and a black wolf the size of a pony came through it with blood on his muzzle.

The man who had held me never finished his scream.

Torvi rolled to her feet, shook out her wrist, and said, "That's twice this week someone's had a blade on me."

"I'm getting a bad temper."

The rest of it was over in a minute.

We rode home at noon with the quartermaster's ledger in my coat, thirty crates on mules, and two prisoners tied across their own ponies.

Torin did not speak to me the whole way.

He rode close enough that our knees touched, and his hand stayed on my reins.

It was after dark when the pain started.

I was in the tower, sitting on his bed with my boots off, trying to read the quartermaster's shorthand by firelight.

My jaw ached.

Then my gums.

Then a bone-deep burning started in my spine and ran down both arms, and the book dropped out of my hands.

"Torin," I said.

He was across the room and on his knees before I'd finished his name.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. It hurts. It hurts everywhere."

My fingers curled.

The nails darkened and thickened, and little dark hairs rose along my forearms.

My teeth pressed against the inside of my lips, long and sharp.

I screamed.

He gathered me up against his chest.

"I've got you," he said into my hair. "Breathe. It's the half-shift. It's your wolf. She's coming up and she doesn't know the way."

"I can't."

"You can. You've been under for fifteen years. She's been waiting." His arms tightened. "Don't fight her, Rhona. Let her up."

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