Chapter 17: Silver on the Road

Dorian's POV

We left Stormreach at dawn, and I rode on her right, on the side facing the trees.

I had not told her why.

I had told her scouts had counted six wolves on the road, and that we would ride in a wedge with Verity and the eleven old soldiers around her.

I had not told her I had barely slept.

The night before, I had lain awake and thought about my father.

Her father had let him live.

It was the whole reason I knew the name Wycliffe.

Twenty-eight years ago, my father's pack had been starving and running from a flood, and General Wycliffe's lines stood across the only pass.

Every other Alpha would have cut them down for crossing.

He had stood aside and let three hundred wolves go through, with their children.

My father swore on his deathbed that my pack would repay it.

I had walked into the war at Hollow Ridge intending to burn Greyhollow to the ground.

Then I saw the ring on Roderick Grimshaw's hand, and I called a truce I did not understand myself.

I understood it now.

She was riding beside me in her father's black coat, with the hood back.

She caught me looking.

"What?" said Elowen.

"Nothing."

"You've said nothing for an hour."

"I'm thinking about the road."

"You're thinking about me," she said. "I can hear your pulse."

I laughed.

It was the last easy sound I made that day.

We were two miles past the border stones when my wolf went cold in my chest.

"Stop," I said.

The column halted.

The road ran between two steep banks of pine, and the wind brought me iron.

Not steel.

Silver.

"Verity!"

She had already drawn.

"Down!" I shouted.

The first bolt hit the sergeant's horse.

The animal screamed and went over, and the old man rolled clear with a curse.

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