The Thirteenth Moon novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: What Fire Wants

Torin got between us before I saw him move.

He didn't touch Davin, and he didn't growl.

He stood with his hands loose at his sides and his back to me, and he said, quietly, "Not in front of the Council, Dav."

The old nickname landed on Davin hard.

For a moment the gold stayed in his eyes, and then the envoy's chair scraped and her dry voice cut across the hall.

"Alpha Rawlings. There is a witness at table four, and there is no blood in a cookhall."

Orrin had a hand on his son's arm, white-knuckled.

"Davin. Now."

Davin shuddered once, all over, and the gold went out of his eyes.

He let his father walk him out through the doors, and he didn't look back at me.

The hall started moving again, one table at a time.

The old man at the pass pushed a plate of eggs across to Torin.

"Eat, boy," he said. "You've earned it."

I did not get to talk to Torin properly until dark.

I fed the whole ridge breakfast and dinner that day.

Every wolf who came through the line looked at me differently than they had the morning before.

Some of them looked worried, and some of them looked pleased.

A woman with a baby on her hip squeezed my hand over the mashed potatoes and said nothing at all.

When the last pot was scrubbed, Torin took my coat off the hook and held it out.

"Walk with me."

"Is that an order, guard?"

"It's a request."

We went down the east trail in the dark, side by side.

At the bottom he turned toward the creek instead of Edda's cabin, and I let him.

The flat stones were silver in the moonlight.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Thirteenth Moon from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.