The Drunk Wolf novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Choosing Peace

Sorcha stands over Struan and invokes the Choosing Peace, then tells him she has loved him for six years and he kisses her and stops; Ailsa brings word that his grandmother has been arrested.

The grey wolf didn't move.

It stood over me with its legs braced and its head low, and it looked straight up at the six bolts.

"Hold," I said.

Nobody on the gallery held anything back. Their fingers were on the triggers.

Then the wolf shuddered.

It folded in on itself.

The fur went first, then the size, and then Struan was on his hands and knees on the flagstones, naked and shaking, with whisky still dripping off his hair.

My cord was on his wrist.

He tried to get up and his arms gave.

I pulled the green cloak off my shoulders and threw it over him.

Then I stepped over him, so my skirts were around his hands, and I faced the gallery.

"Anyone who looses a bolt at my feet had better be sure of his aim," I said.

"Sorcha," my uncle said. "Move."

"No."

I turned to the high table.

"I tied my cord on this man in front of eleven chiefs. You all saw it."

The west glen chief was still brushing straw off his good jacket. He nodded slowly.

"From the tying to the Hunter's Moon is the Choosing Peace," I said. "No blood may be drawn from the chosen. Not by a guard. Not by a Regent. Not by anyone."

"The Choosing is void," Tormod said. "He had no wolf."

"He has one now. You all just knelt to it."

Somebody near the hearth laughed, short and nervous, and stopped.

"The Grey Edict is older than the Charter," my uncle said.

"Then let the Moon Court weigh one against the other. That's what the Moon Court is for." I looked down the high table. "Isn't it?"

The oldest chief, the one from the head of the glen, put both hands flat on the cloth.

"The lass has the Charter right," she said. "The Peace holds. The rest waits for the Stone."

One by one, the others muttered agreement.

Not all eleven. Enough.

My uncle smiled at me.

It was the smile he used on my father, the one that said he had all the time in the world.

He lifted two fingers.

The crossbows came down along the rail.

"Take him wherever you like, niece," he said. "Twenty-nine days is a long time."

Murdo had shifted back by the hearth. He stood in the ruin of his kilt with a burn up one arm, and he didn't say anything at all.

That was worse than anything he could have said.

I got Struan up the tower stair with Ailsa under his other arm.

He weighed a ton and he wouldn't let us carry him.

"Pick up your feet," Ailsa said. "I'm not your grandmother."

"Thank God," he said, through his teeth.

In my room I sat him by the fire and threw him the old Guard jumper I sleep in.

Ailsa took the door outside.

He pulled the jumper on and sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the cord on his wrist.

The shaking had stopped.

What came instead was worse.

"What have you done," he said.

"I made my Choosing."

"You chained yourself to a dead man." He looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and very clear. "You know what the Edict says. Anyone who shelters a Grey shares the sentence. That's you, now. That's you on the Stone beside me."

"Then you'd better not be a dead man."

"This isn't a joke."

"I'm not laughing."

He stood up too fast and caught himself on the mantel.

"Six years," he said. "Six years you've sat in my stillhouse on winter nights and I've sent you home every time. Why do you think I did that?"

"Because you're a coward?"

"Because I'm a wolfless drunk who carries casks. Because of exactly this."

"You're not wolfless."

"I'm worse than wolfless!"

His voice hit the stone and the candles shivered.

He flinched from his own voice.

I walked across the room until I was close enough to smell the whisky in his hair.

"I have loved you since you crawled out on that ice," I said. "For six years. I'm not going to stop because you grew a tail."

He stared at me.

Then he took my face in both hands and kissed me.

He backed me into the door hard enough that the latch rattled.

It wasn't gentle.

It was six years of winter evenings and not touching, all at once.

He kissed like a starving man, and his hands shook on my jaw.

I got my fingers in the wet wool at his chest and pulled him closer.

He made a sound against my mouth that went right through me.

My back was flat to the oak and his whole body was against mine, and I could feel his heart slamming.

Then he stopped.

He put his forehead against mine and breathed.

"Not drunk," he said. "Not like this."

"You're not drunk."

"I've had three drams tonight. I always have three drams. You deserve a man who's had none."

He stepped back.

He was still holding my face.

"Ask me again when I'm sober," he said.

I would have answered him.

Ailsa's fist hit the door behind my head, three times, hard.

"Sorcha!" Her voice came through the oak. "Open up!"

I yanked it open.

She was out of breath, with her phone in her hand.

"That was the stillhouse," she said. "Your uncle's guards just went in and took Morag. For sheltering a Grey."

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