Chapter 19: The Empty House

The Redmoor packhouse had forty rooms, and the two of them were living in one.

I rode over on a grey morning, three weeks after the pack left, with Emmett at my side and my daughter strapped to my chest.

Dorian had wanted to come.

I told him this one was mine.

The yard was empty and the doors hung open.

Weeds had begun to push up between the cobbles where two hundred wolves had stood.

I found them in the kitchen.

There was a long scarred table, with Garrick at one end and Verity at the other, and eight feet of bare wood between them.

Each had a bowl of porridge, and neither was eating.

Every doorframe in the house had a black handprint burned into it, at the height of a woman's reach.

I had passed half a dozen on the way in.

Verity looked up first.

She had lost weight, and her braid had come undone, and there was a long red scratch on the back of her wrist.

"Have you come to look?" she said.

"I came to talk."

"There's nothing to say." Garrick didn't lift his head. "Say what you want and go."

I sat down in the chair in the middle, between them, and unbuckled the sling to settle my daughter on my lap.

Verity's eyes went to the baby and stayed there.

"She's got your hair," she said, and then looked as though she wished she hadn't.

"Dark red. She'll go lighter."

"Everyone left," Garrick said. "Nobody comes. Nobody even brings the wood."

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