Chapter 12: The Grave

I got dressed without looking at him.

"Tell me about the river," I said.

"Not here."

"Then where?"

He took me down the hill behind the hall, to a patch of ground fenced with iron and shaded by two old pines.

There was a single grey stone.

Rooke, it said. Alpha of Cairnfell. Twelve years gone.

Bram stood at the gate with his hands in his pockets. He didn't come in.

"I was nineteen," Costa said.

His voice was flat and careful.

"There was a truce at the bridge, between our packs."

"My father went to meet yours, to talk about the grazing land."

"Your father was dead. Rhys was twenty-one and had just taken the pack."

"I know that part."

"My father walked out onto the bridge alone. I watched him from the bank."

His jaw worked.

"Your brother came out to meet him. They spoke for about a minute. I couldn't hear."

"And then?"

"Then Rhys shifted, and he killed him. In front of me. In front of both packs."

The wind moved in the pines.

"Hollowmere said it was a duel," he said. "Our packs buried it."

"Your brother never said a word to me about why. Not at the funeral, not once in twelve years."

"Costa."

"I swore, standing at this stone, that I'd take from him whatever he loved most."

I stood very still.

"And three weeks ago, Odette Slocumb's list came to me. One line on it. Rhys Thackeray's hidden sister."

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