Chapter 14: What the Husbands Did

Devon took the stairs in two jumps and went down on his knees in front of Roz.

He did not touch her.

He looked at the cuffs, at the raw red ring they had worn into her wrists, and his face came apart.

"Who did this?"

"Your father," Roz said. "Keys, Devon."

Conall came down behind him with the key ring from a wolf's belt in his fist.

He unlocked me first.

The silver fell away, and my hands came back to me, aching, as if I'd held them in snow.

"Don't," I said, when he reached for my wrist.

"Let me look at it. Please. It's a burn."

"Look at it upstairs."

He nodded and let go.

Roz was already on her feet, rubbing her arms, with Devon standing like a post beside her.

"Where are they?" she said. "Where are our girls?"

"The nursery," said Conall. "Father has five wolves on the door."

"How many does Devon have?"

"All of them," Devon said. "They're my patrol."

We went up through the house together.

At the end of the hall, five wolves stood in front of the nursery door, with Orson in the middle of them.

Behind us, a hundred more crowded the stairwell.

They were Devon's wolves, his border patrol, and they had come in off the drive with their hands open and their eyes on him.

"Stand aside, Father," Devon said.

"Devon." Orson spread his hands. "Think. Every wolf in this house can hear you."

"Good."

"You are about to do something you can't take back."

"I did that on Tuesday," Devon said. "I'm trying to do the other thing now."

He turned and walked out onto the porch, and Conall went with him, and I went after them.

The whole pack stood on the drive in the cold with their breath going up.

Two hundred faces, and not one of them knew what to believe.

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