Chapter 6: The White Wolf

The rogue on the gravel kept grinning, and I kept my paw on his chest.

"Who sends it?" I said.

My voice came out of the wolf as a growl, but he understood.

"You know who," he said. "The one who made you. He's been counting your birthdays."

Then a huge shadow fell across us both.

Lucan took the rogue by the collar and hauled him off the ground with one hand.

"That one is mine," he said. "He is going to talk."

"I'll talk," the rogue said, laughing, spitting blood. "I'll tell you all about it."

The Lycans bound him and dragged him away.

I stood in the ruined doorway and the quiet came in around me.

The fire had burned down to orange and smoke.

The north gate was closed, and rogue bodies lay in rows along the wall.

And the whole pack had come out to look at me.

They stood in a half circle on the burned grass, hundreds of them, some wounded and some in torn clothes.

The nursery women held children on their hips.

Nobody said a word.

I was a white wolf in a doorway with blood on her muzzle.

Every one of them knew exactly who I was.

They had called me the ghost for two years. They had called me worse for eighteen.

The old cook pushed through the crowd with a baby on her arm.

"That's our girl," she said.

She said it loudly, and she looked straight at the elders when she did.

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