Chapter 10: The Hot Spring

For a second, nobody in the round hall breathed.

Then Alder's hand came down on the arm of the Alpha's chair so hard the wood cracked.

"You'll take that back," he said.

"No, sir."

"In front of the pack?"

"That's where you made the decree," Cale said. "That's where I'm using it."

Morwenna had gone white to the lips.

Garth's gloved hand had closed on the back of her chair.

The hall was coming apart into noise, wolves on their feet, the elder banging his stick on the stones for order.

Alder looked at his son for a long moment.

Then he looked at me.

I knew that look.

It was the one he'd given me at the oath dinner, right before he said the word.

"Out," he said to the hall. "All of you. Now."

They cleared it.

We walked home along the river and the squad didn't stop talking for three miles.

"Did you see her face?" said the left twin.

"I saw his," said the youngest. "The old one. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack."

"He does have a heart attack," said the schoolteacher. "That's the whole point."

"I think the acting Alpha likes our sergeant," said the right twin.

"Everyone knows the acting Alpha likes our sergeant," said Edda. "His mother read it out at dinner."

"That was her letter," I said.

"Was it?" said Edda, and the whole squad laughed, and I walked ahead so they wouldn't see my face.

I couldn't sleep that night.

Eleven wolves in one room, and the cook snores.

Around midnight I took a towel and walked up the valley to the bath-house.

It was an old stone building over the hot spring, older than the Great House.

There was one round pool in the floor, and steam rolled up into the rafters.

Nobody used it after dark.

I'd come here as a girl when I couldn't sleep.

I left my clothes on the bench and slid into the water up to my chin.

The heat went into every bruise I had.

I let my head fall back on the stone and closed my eyes.

The door opened.

I knew the scent before I opened my eyes.

Pine sap. Cedar soap. And tonight, whiskey, which was new.

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