Chapter 7: The Warm Tea

Soren filled the doorway, and Dane tried to look around him.

"Linnea, I need five minutes. Alone."

"No," Soren said.

"I wasn't talking to you."

"I know," Soren said. "That's why I said it."

I pulled on a cardigan and stepped up beside the Prince.

The corridor was cold, and Dane's wet shirt was stuck to his chest.

His hands shook so badly that he pressed them flat against his thighs to hide it.

"What do you want, Dane?"

"My wolf hasn't answered in two years," he said.

The words came out of him in a rush.

"I can't shift. I can't hear him. I go out on the ridge on full moons and stand there, and nothing comes."

I stared at him.

I remembered a polo shirt at a feast, and a flat, grey-eyed man saying his wolf was sulking.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're the only person who ever knew me," Dane said. "And you came back. It has to mean something."

"It means the Lycan court sent me."

"It means the Moon sent you. Linnea, please, just come to the healer's with me and let her look at you."

"Why me?"

He stopped. His mouth stayed open for a moment.

"Because I think it's you," he said, and then his face closed.

I felt Soren go very still beside me.

"What do you think is me?" I asked.

"Nothing. I'm tired. I'm not making sense."

"You're making plenty of sense," I said. "You're just not making it tonight."

I put my hand on the door.

"Tomorrow, at breakfast, every wolf in this pack will be in the Gathering Hall. You'll stand up in front of all of them.