Chapter 4: The White Wolf Runs

The training ground was a frozen field behind Blackthorn house, ringed with pines and edged by a stone gallery that looked down on it.

I stood in the grey training clothes with my hands going numb.

Corwin stood three feet in front of me.

The other intern leaned on a fence post with his arms folded, waiting to enjoy himself.

Corwin held up his phone before he said anything else.

"Three packs have called since breakfast," he said. "They all asked if I'd hand you back."

My stomach dropped. "What did you tell them?"

"That Pinewatch can say it to my face." He put the phone away. "Let them come. Until they do, you're mine to train."

"You've shifted once," Corwin said. "In the trial room, with the Elder holding the door. Now you shift because I tell you to."

"I don't know how," I said.

"Nobody does until the first time they do it on their own."

"What if it doesn't come?"

"Then we stand here until it does."

I closed my eyes and pushed.

Nothing happened.

My skin stayed skin, my hands stayed hands, and the other intern coughed into his fist to cover a laugh.

"Think about the table," Corwin said, quiet. "Think about the forty minutes."

My eyes snapped open.

"How do you know it was forty minutes?"

"I counted," he said. "I was up in the gallery, and I counted every one."

He had never said that out loud, and neither of us moved.

He had watched me stand there.

He had counted them, and he had not come down.

I would have stopped and asked him why, but my wolf heard what he said, and she was angry.

The anger came up from my stomach, hot and fast, and I had no way to hold it.

"Katja," Corwin said sharply. "Breathe."

His hand came up to steady my back, and it stopped an inch from my spine.

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