Chapter 7: The Dark Toast

"I wanted to see if it fit," Sanna said.

She stood up from the porch step and smoothed the grey hoodie down over her hips.

It was too short in the sleeves.

"It smells like you, Tuuli. Cedar and bleach and sad. Did you know that?"

Niko stopped at the foot of the steps.

"Go home, Sanna."

"I'm only keeping my friend company. His mate never leaves her hood on the hook."

"She leaves it on a hook in the hall kitchen," he said. "Where you took it from."

Sanna's smile slipped, then came back.

"Goodnight, Luna," she said to me, and walked off down the drive in my hoodie with her hair swinging.

I should have been angry.

All I could think was that he'd said hook, and kitchen, and hadn't looked at her once.

The pack fish boil was held every year on the Saturday after the Mate Call.

It happened in the boathouse, a barn of a place with a stone hearth at one end.

Long tables ran its whole length, and Elina had been up since four.

By seven the air was thick with steam, onions and melted butter.

I carried platters and kept my hood down.

Niko had asked, and my aunt had said in Finnish that she would sit on me otherwise.

Wolves nodded at me.

A few of them nodded without looking at my face first.

That was progress.

At the head of the longest table, Niko stood and tapped a glass with a spoon.

"The dark toast," he said, and everyone laughed and groaned.

It was an old Iron Lake custom.

When the first fish came out of the pot, the Alpha raised a cup.

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