Chapter 24: Is She Even a Wolf?

The next Autumn Muster opened on a Thursday.

The check-in line ran the whole length of the hallway at Hayes Lodge.

I stood in it with my badge hand out and my canvas jacket over my arm.

Ashgrove's new Alpha stood behind me, the broad man who had finally taken his hat off.

He was holding my duffel and pretending not to be nervous.

"You don't have to stand in line," he said. "You could walk to the front."

"I like the line."

"Why?"

"I've been in it before."

He opened his mouth and decided not to ask.

The line moved.

At the long table by the stairs, Wynne sat in her Stonecrest fleece with a pen behind her ear.

Beside her, on a stool, the old scent-keeper dozed with her cane across her knees.

There was a hound under the table with a thermos on his collar.

He lifted his head when he saw me and thumped his tail on the boards, twice.

"Name," said Wynne, without looking up.

"You know my name."

"Rules are rules."

"Larissa Aldren."

"Pack."

"Ashgrove."

"Hold out your wrist."

I held it out.

Wynne took it in both hands and bent her head, and she breathed in.

Her face changed, and she was grinning when she looked up.

"Cedar smoke," she said. "River water. And my brother, which is rude."

"It's his fault."

"I'll write it down anyway."

She wrote it in the roll in a round, quick hand.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Wolf Who Can't Shift Just Dropped One from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.