The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Out by Sundown

Banished by dawn, Calla shuts the door on a sick Alder, takes her mother's map up the mountain, and meets a man with a knife on the trail.

"Who are you?" I said out loud, to the dark.

The voice in my ribs was in no hurry.

"Hesper," it said. "Later. You're bleeding on the root, and that old woman is looking for you."

I looked down.

I had dug my nails into my own palm without noticing, and there was blood on my white dress.

I walked back to the village with my arms wrapped around myself.

My chest ached where the bond had torn, and my mind kept going back to it.

Hattie was on her porch with a lantern and a thermos, in her coat over her nightgown.

She didn't ask me anything.

She put me in the kitchen chair, wrapped a blanket around me, and poured something hot and sweet down me until I stopped shaking.

At first light, two patrol wolves came up the path.

They were men I'd served pie to every Sunday for two years.

Neither one would meet my eye.

"Alpha's order," the taller one said to the porch rail. "Calla Braemar leaves pack land by sundown. She takes her clothes and nothing else that belongs to the pack."

"That's the cottage," Hattie said. "The cottage is mine."

"The cottage stays with you, Hattie. It's just the girl."

"The girl," Hattie said, "has lived in my house for seven years."

"I know." He shifted his boots. "I'm sorry. It's the Alpha's word."

They left.

I stood in the kitchen and counted what I owned.

Two pairs of jeans, my diner apron, a down jacket, my mother's boots.

A bus fare, if I scraped the tip jar.

"Nothing says you have to stay on pack land to be wolfless," Hattie said.

"Nothing says I have a wolf, either."

I didn't say what had spoken to me in the dark.

I wasn't sure yet that I hadn't made it up.

A knock came at the front door, soft and uneven.

Hattie went to the window and her mouth went flat.

"Don't," she said.

I opened it anyway.

Alder stood on the step with his hair uncombed, in yesterday's white shirt.

He looked terrible.

His skin had a grey wash to it, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"Cal," he said.

He coughed into his fist, a wet hard cough, and wiped his hand on his trousers.

"I came to say it isn't personal. My dad thought... the pack needs someone with a wolf at the head of it. You understand. You've always been smart about things."

"You rejected me in front of two hundred people."

"It had to be public. That's the rule."

"Did you ask me first?"

He looked at his boots.

"The pain eases in a week," he said. "Ten days at most. Lorelei says it only hurts if you fight it."

"Lorelei says."

"She's been really good about this. She's the one who suggested..."

He stopped.

"The one who suggested what?" I asked.

"That I should come and say goodbye properly."

He tried a smile.

It was the smile he used on the whole pack, and for the first time in my life it did nothing to me at all.

"Goodbye, Alder," I said.

I shut the door on his face.

Behind me, Hattie gave a short laugh.

"Well," she said. "There's the first time I ever saw you do that."

I leaned my forehead on the wood.

My chest hurt so badly I could hardly stand, and somewhere under it the dry voice said, very softly, "Good."

I turned around.

"Hattie, I think I'm hearing things."

Hattie looked at me for a long moment.

Then she took her reading glasses off the cord and set them on the table, which she only did when something was serious.

"Sit down, honey."

I sat.

She went to the old bread tin on the top shelf and took out a folded piece of cloth.

She laid it on the table and smoothed it flat.

It was a hand-drawn map, inked on linen, of the mountains behind the village.

A single route was marked in faded silver thread, going up past the last pack boundary stone to a ridge.

At the end of the thread, someone had stitched a small cabin.

"Your mother gave me this the week before she died," Hattie said. "She told me to hold it until your wolf came. If it ever came."

"Mama never told me anything about a wolf."

"No," Hattie said. "She didn't."

I put my hand flat on the cloth.

It was warm.

"Who lives up there?"

"Somebody who owes her," Hattie said. "Go before sundown, and don't stop for the Alpha's wolves."

She packed me a bag.

She put in bread, a wedge of cheese, a first-aid kit and a heavy wool sweater.

At the door she held my face in both her hands and kissed my forehead hard.

"Whatever you hear up there," she said, "you listen."

I hiked all afternoon.

I passed the last boundary stone at four, and my chest gave a small, hot pulse as I crossed it.

The trail climbed through old cedar into thin air.

By the time the sun hit the ridgeline, my legs were shaking, my blisters had blisters, and I still hadn't cried.

I came around a stand of boulders.

A man stood in the path with one shoulder against a tree.

He was tall, dark-bearded, and in a canvas coat.

A long knife stood up over his shoulder in a worn leather sheath.

I knew him.

He'd stood alone at the edge of the clearing, counting on his fingers.

He looked me up and down, from my wrecked boots to my face.

"You're late," he said.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend