Chapter 4: Whisper Behind the Hand

Breakfast at the pack hall was the one meal every wolf came to, and I walked into it on the Alpha's arm.

My hood was up.

He had looked at it in the lodge doorway, and said nothing, and tucked my hand against his side.

Forty heads turned.

I kept my eyes on the floorboards and listened to the whispers go along the long table.

"Look at that. He's still got her."

"Give it a week. Daylight's a cruel thing."

My aunt Elina came out of the kitchen with a ladle in her fist.

She was a big woman with flour to her elbows, and she crossed the hall and hugged me so hard my feet left the floor.

"At last, a man with a nose," she said, in a voice made to be heard. Then, in Finnish, into my hair: "Perkele, you're shaking. Eat something."

Niko dipped his head to her.

"Elina."

"Alpha." She looked him up and down. "You hurt her, I'll put you in the stockpot."

"Yes, ma'am."

I almost laughed.

He led me to the head of the table and sat me at his right, where the Luna sits.

Sanna's seat.

She was three places down in cream cashmere, with her father beside her, and she smiled at me.

"Good morning, Luna," she said. "That's a lovely hoodie. Is it new?"

"No," I said.

"I could tell."

Niko put a plate of eggs in front of me and said nothing at all.

I watched him instead, because it was easier than watching her.

That was how I saw it.

Wolves came to the head table one at a time, to say good morning, or to ask a favour, or just to be seen by the Alpha.

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