My Pet Sold Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: A Life Owed

Dane's grandmother was a small woman with a white braid, and she met me at the lodge door with a wooden spoon.

"You're thinner than your picture," she said.

"What picture?"

"The one my grandson keeps in an envelope. Come in. You're letting out the heat."

I went in.

The lodge had been made into one long hall, with a single table down the middle and about thirty wolves on benches along both sides.

Every one of them stopped talking when I came through the door.

Penny, behind me, whispered, "I can feel them counting my pulse."

"Just smile," I whispered back.

"I'm smiling. It's just a lot of teeth."

The grandmother planted me in the chair at her right hand.

Dane sat at the far end of the table, where the Alpha sits.

He looked at me down thirty feet of wolves and roast potatoes, and I saw his shoulders come down an inch.

"Do you cook?" said his grandmother.

"Badly."

"Good. We have plenty who do."

A young man across the table snorted into his glass, and she pointed the spoon at him without looking.

"You burn water."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Eat."

We ate.

It was loud, and warm, and nobody asked me a single question about the bond.

A little girl of six or seven came around the table on her knees and climbed into Penny's lap without asking.

"You smell like dogs," she told Penny.

"I work with dogs."

"Can I see them?"

"They're at the clinic. You'd have to come to my work."

"Okay," said the little girl, and began to pull Penny's curls straight to see how long they were.

Penny looked across at me with total panic and total joy.

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