Chapter 16: The Scent of a Lie

The wind was blowing from Camille to me, and I smelled nothing.

I smelled orange peel and expensive soap.

A she-wolf carrying a pup smells of warm milk and iron, and it comes off her skin from the first week.

My mother's friends had taught me that at the laundry when I was nine.

Camille smelled like a woman wearing perfume.

"That isn't possible," Lucan said.

He had gone grey under the dirt.

"Isn't it?" Camille's eyes were full. "The night of the moon feast. You'd had wine, you were so tired. You walked me to the guest wing."

"I walked you to the door and said goodnight."

"You don't remember."

"I drank water that night. I remember every minute." He turned to the crowd. "I have not touched her. I have never touched her."

A murmur ran around the plot, and a few wolves looked at their feet.

Camille put her hand over her mouth and made a small broken sound.

It was very good.

I stood up from the grass.

"She isn't pregnant," I said.

Every head turned.

"Excuse me?" Camille said.

"There's no pup. I can smell you from here, and I can't smell one."

"Ada." Her voice was gentle, and it hurt me, because I could hear that she'd rehearsed it. "I know you're upset. I know how much this must hurt you."

"Don't tell me what I'm feeling."

"The gamma who was dismissed for theft," someone said behind me, quite clearly, "says the Alpha's pup isn't real."

Someone else laughed.

"She woke her wolf a week ago," a man said. "She can't tell a pup from a pine cone."

"I can," I said. "I've known the scent since I was nine."

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