Chapter 18: The Trade

The note was one line in Felicity's slanting hand.

"I'm going to Rowan for my medicine. Don't come after me. Please."

I read it twice, standing in the middle of the pack hall with the whole hill watching.

"She's walked into a trap," Anders said at my shoulder. His voice cracked on it. "She's walked in and shut the door."

"She went on her own feet," Ash said.

"That's the trap."

Mom made a low sound and sat down on a bench with both hands over her mouth.

I looked at her for a second.

Then I turned to the green parka.

"Get me two trucks and the quickest six wolves you've got."

We reached the lake road by four in the afternoon.

The Thorsen house sat on a point of black rock above the water, three stories of glass and cedar, with a boathouse at the foot of the lawn.

Rowan was waiting for us on the dock.

He had known we'd come, and he had put on a clean white shirt for it.

Felicity sat on a bench beside him in her cream coat, with a blanket on her knees.

She looked small and gray, and a woman in a nurse's jacket stood close behind her.

"There she is," Rowan said. "The new Alpha, in her work boots."

"Let her go."

"She isn't a prisoner, Sigrid. Ask her."

I looked at Felicity.

Her eyes were red.

"I came myself," she said. "He said he'd have the doctor see me tonight."

"You have a doctor at home."

"Everybody always knows what I need," she said, with no heat at all. "Nobody ever asks."

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