Chapter 5: The Howl Next Door

I don't remember getting to the cottage.

I remember the gravel under my hands, and then the cold kitchen tiles against my cheek.

A she-wolf's heat isn't romantic, whatever the old songs say.

It's a fever that lives in your bones.

Every joint aches. Your skin burns and your teeth chatter at the same time. Your wolf howls to be held.

A mate's scent is the only thing that takes the edge off.

For twenty years, Duncan had come.

He'd lie on the bed with me in his old rugby shirt, and hold my hand, and read me the football scores until I slept.

I rang him from the floor.

He answered on the first ring. "Mischa?"

"It's my heat."

A pause. "It can't be. It's not due."

"Tell my body that."

"I'm coming."

He came in ten minutes. I heard the Range Rover skid on the gravel.

He found me on the tiles and lifted me without a word, and carried me to the sofa.

For a moment it was like it always was.

His hand on my forehead. His scent, warm and familiar.

My wolf stopped pacing and pressed against him.

He soaked a tea towel under the cold tap and laid it across the back of my neck.

"Better?"

"A bit."

"I've got you."

He sat on the floor beside the sofa and held my hand, the way he always had.

We didn't talk about the council. We didn't talk about anything.

The cramps came every few minutes, and he breathed with me through each one.

It was nearly an hour before I heard it.

A howl, from across the lake.

High and thin and desperate. A young she-wolf in heat.

Duncan's head came up.

I felt his hand go rigid in mine.

"That's Bethany," he said.

"I know who it is."

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