Chapter 23: We Hunt Together

The next full moon came up red over the pines.

I stood at the edge of the Kettle River in the dark, with two packs behind me.

I did what I had not done since I was twelve.

I let her out.

My wolf came up through me the way she always did now, cold and silver and sure.

The shift took less than a breath.

My bones bent and my skin ran with fur.

I dropped onto four paws on the wet bank, and the whole night opened up around me.

I could smell fox in the bracken three hills away.

I could smell the river, the pine, and the old fires of every camp on both banks.

Under it all was one familiar scent of woodsmoke and cedar.

Eli stood beside me in the shape of a black wolf, with one grey patch on his left shoulder.

He was bigger than I was.

He put his nose against my neck, and I felt his voice in my head.

[You lead.]

[Always?]

[Tonight.]

I ran.

I took the bank at a gallop with the whole forest in my nose, and I could read every track on the ground.

A deer had crossed here at dusk.

A man with a rifle had stood there and thought better of it.

The Council's wardens had walked the north fence in pairs and eaten apples.

Beside me, a step back and then not a step back at all, ran Eli.

He did not trail me, and I did not outrun him.

We ran flank to flank through the bracken and over the fallen logs.

The pack streamed out behind us in a long low line of pale and dark and red-brown.

The first time, I had hunted alone, with a snare laid across my path.

Now I ran at full speed with my mate beside me.

No one was in the link but the people I chose to hear.

I closed the door on all of them and left it open to one.

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