Chapter 19: The Naming

I pulled on Conall's flannel shirt and went to the window.

Twelve wolves had come out of the trees and sat in a ring around the Alpha house.

They were big wolves, grey and brown, with their eyes on the front door.

I knew most of them by smell.

Two were cousins of the Beta's, and one had been a groomsman at somebody's wedding I had worked.

Not one of them had come for a fight.

They had come to sit there until the moon rose the next night.

Then the Alpha's mate would never reach the Hall.

"They can keep us in until moonrise," Conall said.

"The Beta only needs me missing from that floor, and you have no one to name."

He was already shifting at the edge of the bed, and I put my hand on his arm.

"Stay," I said. "Please."

"Cassandra."

"Eleven years your wolf was quiet, and mine slept for five. I think I can talk to twelve of them."

I went down the stairs barefoot, in his shirt, and opened the front door.

The cold hit my legs.

Twelve heads came up.

I stood on the porch with my hair loose and let my eyes go silver.

"Which of you drank from the blue thermos?" I said.

Nobody moved.

"I smell it on the three of you by the fence."

"Your wives took it from Lorna's hands at the bake sale, and you drank it after."

"You didn't know what was in it, and I know that."

"The Beta knew what was in it. He fed it to your wives, and your kids, and me."

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