Orel on the stump tilts her head. Just slightly.
And Keer—
Keer's head has turned. That single brown eye finds me.
Not disgust.
Not amusement.
His shoulders draw tight. His nostrils flare, just slightly.
He knows. They all know. Every person within earshot knows that I just—
I look at the ground. There's a beetle crawling across the dirt near my foot. Shiny black shell. Nugget would eat that if she saw it. Nugget is clucking under my arm, completely oblivious to the fact that her owner just humiliated herself in front of an entire werewolf pack.
Great first impression.
Top of the list.
Beats the time I mixed up a sleep tonic with a laxative and Kestria didn't speak to me for a week.
"Can we talk about something else?" My voice is climbing. "Anything else. That fourth fire pit is dying. Someone should bank it with hardwood."
"Mel."
"I'm serious. Softwood burns too fast. You lose all your coals."
Keer looks away. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than before.
"Listen."
Not gradually. Not one by one. Every single person here stops what they're doing and looks at him, and nobody told them to. The young men near the drying racks straighten. The woman in the doorway shifts forward. The permanent scowl loosens into attention. Even the pups stop wrestling. Rhen, who was leaning against a post a moment ago, goes still.
"Kestria was attacked." His voice carries across the crowd. "Humans from Blomstradal. The Forest Warden and his men."
Someone makes a low sound. Anger, maybe. Fear.
I should be paying attention to this. I should be figuring out who's sympathetic, who's hostile—
"The human treated her wounds." He nods toward me. Brief.
Hmph,the human.
Not looking directly at me now. "Moonbright poison. She had the cure."
More murmuring. A different sound this time—less surprise, more oh, it's her. So they'd heard about me. Great. I've been the subject of werewolf gossip, apparently.
"The cottage isn't safe anymore. The humans know what happened there. They'll come back." His eye sweeps the crowd, and people are straightening, responding. Adjusting their weight, squaring their shoulders. "The human stays here until the situation is resolved. She's under my authority."
Under his authority.
His voice drops on that word and—Nugget. Nugget breaking the pink dye pot. Yup.
The woman who was hiding in her doorway nods. A man near Rhen drops his chin. Even Orel on the stump gives a single, barely-there dip of her head.
"You're keeping a human here?"
The voice comes from the back. The big man with the permanent scowl—has to be—pushing forward through the crowd. He looks even more disgusted than before, and I have a horrible feeling it's not just about me being human anymore.
