Chapter 6: The Border Wolf

I went out after midnight, in my coat, with my bandaged hand tucked against my chest.

The bunkhouses were dark, and the lookout in the cedar yawned and pretended he hadn't seen me.

The ridge road was white with frost.

I walked the quarter mile to the border stones with my breath smoking in front of me.

I didn't know what I would say.

I only knew that if Garrick was out here every night, I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

The black wolf lay on the Blood Moon side of the middle stone with his chin on his paws.

He was enormous, with a scar through the fur above his left eye.

He had been there a long time.

There was frost on his back, and a ring of flattened grass around him.

He lifted his head when he heard me and went completely still.

"You look ridiculous," I said, and my voice shook.

He didn't move.

"The Council says you've been here every night. I told myself they were lying."

The wolf blinked.

I stepped across the line and sat down on the cold ground beside him, as close as I could get without touching.

My wolf rose up inside me all at once.

She pushed so hard against my ribs that I put my good hand over my chest.

She wanted to go to him.

She wanted to curl up against that great black side and put her face in his fur.

She had wanted it since March.

I had been calling it loneliness, and it had gotten a lot harder to call it that.

"I'm so angry with you," I told him.

He let out a long low breath.

I leaned against his shoulder.

His fur was thick and warm.

Under it the muscle shifted as he tipped his weight toward me, very slowly, so I wouldn't fall.

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