Chapter 11: Little Wolf

Hadrick Vokes did not stand up.

He sat on Jory's own sleeping hide, with Jory's own jerky bag open on his knee, and ate a strip slowly.

"This is good," he said. "You always did have clever hands."

Jory set Bix down behind him and stood in front of the boy.

Two wolves had come in at his back, silent on the frozen path.

One stood at the cave mouth and one at his shoulder, and both held spears.

"Say what you came to say," Jory said.

"Manners, little wolf."

"I'm not your little anything."

"No?" Hadrick chewed. "You were. For twenty-nine years. I carried you home from your first hunt, and you ended by biting me."

Jory felt something move in his memory again, a flash of the old fight, snow and a grey cloak.

Then it was gone.

"I've come to make an offer," Hadrick said. "Because I'm a fair man."

"You throw children into rivers."

"I cull weak stock. It's a different thing."

The Alpha wiped his fingers on his cloak.

"Come home," he said. "Bring the cub, and I'll forget the challenge. Your place is still empty. Your ear is still whole."

"And Bix?" Jory asked.

"The cub goes back where cubs like him go."

"Into the river."

"Into the forest," Hadrick said. "Where he'd have gone anyway."

Behind Jory, the small body pressed hard against his legs.

Jory felt a quiet, dangerous calm settle over him, one he had not felt since the Ash.

"No," he said.

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