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A few gasps went up, as well as a few male snorts.
Einar shifted his gaze to Nereida. “As you say, she rocks the pixie cut.” Another smile lit his face as Nereida’s cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink. Einar shifted his eyes to me. I took his outstretched hand. It was warm and smooth, not as fragile as his crepe-paper skin made it appear. He held my hand in both of his as his clear, pale blue eyes crinkled at the edges.
“You’ve taken on a tremendous responsibility, Desarae Draydon,” his deep voice rumbled.
“How do you know what I’ve done?”
He patted my hand. “I’ve been watching you.”
“But how?”
“We would’ve scented you,” my dad said. “We’ve been up and down this entire mountain range thousands of times, and someone would’ve caught your scent.”
Einar released my hand as he turned to my dad. His white eyebrows rose, causing his forehead to crease. “But you have scented bison and deer and bear and the infrequent indigenous wolf.”
A big grin spread across my dad’s face. “Why, you crafty old cuss.”
“There have been many occasions in my long, long life where I was forced to hide not only from sight but also hide my scent.”
My dad chuckled. “Well, obviously, you did a damn fine job of it since you’ve avoided detection for so long.”
“It was your scent I picked up the night Brutus arrived,” Seff said. “It was faint, but it was there.”
Einar gave Seff a brief nod. “I didn’t come around more than once a month.” The creases in his face deepened as he frowned. “If I had been here...I could’ve warned you. I might have—”
“No.” I reached out to him. “Don’t.”
Every person in the cookhouse spoke simultaneously, every word reassuring.
“This is not your fault,” my dad said.
“Do not take what the rogues did on yourself,” my mom added.
“Murdering bastards,” Seff growled.
Einar shook his head.
“So, Einar.” My dad raised his coffee mug to the twin’s great-grandfather. “Where have you been hanging out the last few years?”
“Mostly in Yellowstone.” Einar sighed, then smiled. “There was a time when no wolf dared trespass there for fear of being caught, but since they reintroduced wolves into the park, it’s been much easier to blend in.”
“Where did you live when you were little, Grandpa?” Arteisma asked.
A bright light twinkled in Einar’s pale eyes as he grinned. “I was born in Norway into a small pack up in the mountains, not much different than it is here. We raised goats and sheep and traded our cheese and wool in the small fishing village near to us.”
Einar settled back in his seat and glanced around the tables. His deep smile lines reappeared as he told a story he must have repeated more than a hundred times before.
“Twice a year, we’d travel into the mountains and meet up with three nearby packs to exchange whatever food or supplies we’d made since the last time we had all come together. If a female was of mating age, males from the other packs would enter a challenge to secure the right to court her. Then, as it is now, the female would have the ultimate choice of whom she mated, though mating outside of her own pack was always encouraged. As a Breeder, I was barred from these challenges. My duty was to share my seed with any other female Breeder whose heat was upon them during the gathering time. I say it was my duty, but it was never my honor, as I was young, and several older males claimed the honor before me.”
He took a long drink from his whiskey glass before going on.
“When I was twenty-two, I set off to live and work in the fishing village. There was always a ship anchored out in the harbor, and one day, another wolf came ashore looking for a new deckhand. We talked for a long while before he hired me on. I could bring whatever goods I thought would bring a reasonable price wherever we were going, so my pack came down from the mountain and brought cheese and wool. We sold it all at the very first port. I worked on that ship for the next five years, and each time we came back to my home port, my pack had more supplies to sell. On my last voyage out, my shipmate received word his father was in poor health. I accompanied him to his pack home, and there I met Segrid, mysakana.”
Einar paused, gazed at the amber liquor in his glass, and sighed.
Arteisma took the silence as a chance to get in another question. “Is Segrid our grandma?”
“Yes. Her blood runs in your veins.” As he looked up from his glass, Einar’s smile turned sad. “She passed away before you were born.”
