They Blamed Me for Mama's Death, So I Healed Their Worst Enemy novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: At the Gate

Royce and nine Elk Fork men come for the Price, Duncan breaks Royce's wrist without raising his voice, and Dovie sees the blood on his shirt.

I got into Dessie's spare dress and my own boots and made it to the porch before the trucks stopped.

Dessie caught my sleeve at the top step.

"Stay behind the post," she said. "He'll want you where he can see you and where they can't reach you. That's the whole job of an Alpha, most days."

Three pickups sat idling at the iron gate in the gray light.

Royce Gragg climbed out of the lead one with nine Elk Fork men behind him.

He had put on his Sunday shirt.

Duncan Trivett walked down the drive alone, in the barn coat, with his hands in his pockets.

He did not hurry. He stopped on his side of the gate, and the gate stayed shut.

Behind him, along the porch and the yard and the barn roofs, Roan wolves had begun to appear.

They did not make a sound. There were a great many of them.

"Morning, Alpha," Royce said. He tried to make it easy. "Daddy sent me for the Price. She wandered off the fire last night. Girl's got no sense. We'd be obliged."

"Her name is Miss Moretz," Duncan said.

"Her name's Price, where I come from."

"You're not where you come from."

Royce looked past him, and found me behind the post, and smiled.

It was the smile he used on me at nine, standing over a creek.

"Come on, Price. Quit being dramatic. Get your coat."

"I have a coat," I said. "It's his."

His smile went tight.

"Open the gate," Royce told his men.

Two of them went for the latch.

Duncan took his hands out of his pockets.

He did not raise his voice. I am not sure he raised anything.

"Don't," he said, and the two men stopped with their hands on the iron.

Royce was the only one who did not hear it. He came over the gate in one jump, with his right hand already changing.

His fingers lengthened into claws. He swung at me.

Duncan was between us before I saw him move.

Royce's claws raked across his ribs, and I heard cloth tear.

Duncan caught Royce's wrist in his left hand, and turned it, and the bone snapped with a sound that went all the way across the yard.

Royce screamed.

Duncan did not let go.

"You came onto my mountain," he said, level and quiet, "with nine men, to take a guest of this house out of my yard by the arm."

"She's ours," Royce gasped. "Price is ours. Her mama's blood."

"Say it again."

Royce said nothing.

"Good." Duncan let go.

Royce dropped to his knees in the gravel, holding his wrist against his chest.

"Pick him up," Duncan said to the nine men without looking at them. "Take him down to a doctor. Tell Loyal Gragg the Roan keeps what sits at its fire, and a Gragg who says the word price on this mountain again will pay it to me."

He glanced at the porch.

"All of it. Whatever it comes to."

The nine men put Royce into the truck. Nobody said anything. All three trucks backed down the road in a line.

Royce was still looking at me through the glass.

I looked back.

He had never once seen me not look away. I watched him work out that it was happening.

When the last taillight went around the bend, the Roan wolves let their breath out all at once.

Then they turned and went back to their work.

Duncan stood with his back to me in the drive.

The back of his barn coat was torn open in four long strips.

Under it his white shirt had gone dark all down the left side, and the dark was spreading.

He did not seem to know.

"Duncan," I said.

He turned around, and I saw how white his face was.

"Miss Moretz," he said. "Go inside. Rule two."

"You're bleeding."

"I've bled before."

He took a step toward the house and his knee went.

I had him by the arm before he finished falling.

He flinched hard, and then he did not pull away.

"Don't," he said. "Dovie. Please."

"Please what?" I said. "Bleed on the drive in front of three hundred wolves? Or do what I tell you?"

He looked at me for a long time.

Dessie was somewhere behind us, saying something sharp to somebody about towels.

I took a handful of his ruined shirt in my fist.

"Back stairs," I said. "Which way?"

"Kitchen," he said hoarsely. "Left."

I pulled him through the kitchen and up the narrow stairs behind it, with his blood running down my wrist, and I did not let go of his shirt once.

At the top, on the landing, I turned around.

"Rule two," I said. "I'm breaking it."

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