The Alpha's Claim on the Border Ledger novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: First Shift

The world came in through my nose first.

Lamp oil.

Old paper.

Six kinds of fear, one of them rank and sour, and under all of it the grey-green stink of the paste on the dagger.

The bolt left the string, and I watched it cross the room slowly.

It hit the shelf where my shoulder had been.

I was not there.

I was low and wide and four-legged, and I had never in my life moved so fast.

My feet were on the stone.

My claws were on the stone.

I was grey and gold, huge as a mastiff, and my wolf was in my head laughing.

Mine, she said. Ours. Kill.

I took the crossbow man across the chest, and he went down under me with the weapon spinning away across the floor.

He screamed.

I put my teeth around his wrist and bit until the bones gave.

The man who had my ledger dropped it and ran for the stair.

I let him go, because the book was on the floor and Torin was not.

Torin was on his knees by the table with his hand pressed to his ribs, and the green line on his shirt was spreading.

The man with the broken wrist was crawling toward him with the dagger left-handed.

I came over the table in one jump.

I did not remember deciding.

I landed on his back and drove him flat, and the dagger skittered away, and he lay under my paws and did not move.

Then there were boots on the stairs, a lot of them.

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