My Panther Mate & Our Little Cub novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Thirty Days

The chief sets a thirty-day review and Corina answers him back; Darek takes Corra's fresh jar from her hand.

"I said drink it," Darek repeated, softer, as if the cup might still come back from the sill.

"No," I said.

The word felt strange in Ila's mouth.

Tuck had stopped eating.

He was holding the bowl against his chest and looking from his father's face to mine.

I wanted to put myself between them, and I didn't know whether his father was the danger.

A shadow crossed the doorway before Darek could answer.

"Three bells," said a voice like warm honey. "And the Marrow den has not even opened its shutters."

A lion walked in without knocking.

He was a big man in his forties, with a gold-brown mane of hair, rings on every finger and a smile that included his teeth.

Behind him came a slim woman with a green sash over her shoulder and a basket on her arm.

Her hair was red and sleek as a fox's pelt.

Darek straightened.

"Chief," he said.

So that was Brannoch Redmayne, the one who ruled the clan.

I didn't remember being told.

The knowledge arrived the way my own name had earlier.

Brannoch looked at the hearth, and the bowl, and the porridge on Tuck's chin, and his smile widened.

"Fire lit before noon. Who would have thought."

"We came for the monthly look at the cub," the woman in the green sash said.

Her name was Corra MacIntosh, and she was the clan's healer.

She said it.

"The council is concerned, Ila. Three times this season the neighbors have heard him crying at night."

"He was hungry," I said. "He's fed now."

Brannoch laughed, a big warm sound that made the back of my neck prickle.

"Listen to her. Last month she couldn't be bothered to look at him."

Neighbors had gathered in the doorway behind him, five or six of them in cloaks and aprons, holding their breath.

Nobody was on my side.

I could feel that in the air, thick as smoke.

I took Tuck's shoulder gently and turned him so the chief could see him standing there, small and sticky and breathing.

"Look at him," I said. "Go on. Look at him properly."

"I have," said Brannoch.

"Then you saw the ribs."

The room went quiet.

"A four-year-old panther should weigh over thirty pounds," I said. "He weighs maybe twenty-two. His hair is brittle, his gums are pale and his teeth are loose at the back. That is not neglect you do in one month."

Corra's mouth thinned.

"It's three years," I said. "And nobody in this clan said a word until now."

I didn't know yet whom I was accusing.

I only knew that every person in that doorway had watched and let it happen.

A woman near the back looked at her boots.

Brannoch's smile stopped moving.

"The law is simple," he said, in the voice of a man reciting the weather. "A mother who cannot feed her cub forfeits the cub. The council gives her one month to prove herself and I am generous enough to give it to her today."

He lifted one ringed finger.

"Thirty days. On the thirtieth the cub is weighed before the whole clan. If he is not thriving, he comes to my hall to be raised properly. And the father must stand beside her and sign that she is fit."

Everyone looked at Darek.

He had said nothing through the whole thing.

His amber eyes stayed on the chief, and a muscle in his scarred jaw moved.

"I'll sign if the cub gains," Darek said at last.

Not if she changes.

Not if she cares.

If the cub gains.

It stung more than I expected.

I looked at Tuck, who was watching his father with an expression I couldn't name.

"Thirty days," I said. "Fine. And I want it written down that you weigh him honestly."

Corra made a small offended sound.

Brannoch's eyes glittered.

"Written down. Of course." He turned to leave, then paused beside me, close enough that I smelled musk and cloves.

"You've found a tongue, Ila," he murmured. "How curious. It will make the thirtieth day more entertaining."

The crowd drifted out behind him.

Corra stayed one beat longer, setting her basket on the table.

She uncorked a clay jar and poured dark liquid into a clean cup.

The same smell rose from it, bitter bark and something sweet.

"Your nerves, dear," she said. "You are not well. Drink and rest."

I was reaching to knock it over when a big hand closed over the jar.

Darek lifted it out of her grip.

He didn't look at her, or me.

He set the jar on the highest shelf of the wall shelf, among the pots, and turned his back to both of us.

"Not today," he said.

Corra stared at him, and I stared at his shoulders, and I did not understand what I had just seen.

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