Chapter 24: First Snow

It snowed all night, and in the morning the whole ridge was white.

I woke in Conall's bed with his arm heavy across my waist and the light coming in blue at the window.

My wolf was awake before I was.

She pressed against the inside of my ribs, delighted, and I understood what she wanted.

"Snow," I said.

"I know." Conall did not open his eyes. "She's been saying it for an hour."

"You hear her?"

"I hear both of you."

We went out the back door in nothing but boots and his old canvas jacket, and we shifted at the tree line.

A white wolf in new snow should be invisible.

Conall could not find me for a while.

I let him look, and then I jumped on his back.

We ran the length of the ridge.

The snow squeaked, and the pines let go of their loads in soft thumps, and my breath went up in clouds.

Below us, in the valley, the pack was running too.

I could hear them on the logging road, thirty or forty wolves, yelping and chasing each other through the drifts.

Hattie's grandfather had put the first pot of coffee on at the Fir Cone.

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