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Marcella pulled out the pink card that my mother had written to me. She read it, where my mother had promised I would find mywolf of silverin a city, and that they were nice dreams. “Autumn’s Gift was known to all, but she hid how powerful she truly was. And some of that ability was passed to her daughter. Their dreams, Council, led us to a relic, lost for a thousand years. It is a crystal vial filled with liquid, and according to ancient texts, it can erase and re-create mate bonds, and was used numerous times over the centuries. Wars were fought over control of the vial until it was lost, but Alphas continued to act without it. And here we are, nearly dead, except Gaia has led us back to it. I would say that She is speaking, giving usone last chanceto save ourselves, and it is time we listen.”
Now that caused a commotion, with instant denials. Demetrius took the box from my lap and opened it, and in the morning light, the relic glowed blue-purple-silver.
“We have made our point,” Demetrius told the Council. “Andthis,” Demetrius pointed at Sterling and me, then the scrolls, the box, Cerys, Malte, Daniel, Kyle, and finally my grandfather, all in turn, “is why we will die out by our own claws. This is why AmberHowl says we need a new pack, a small pack, with resources and knowledge to undertake the position of Chronicler, and to sit on this Council and intercede when we trade the Fifth Law for the First. To guard the relic and use it to save this species, not augment their prestige. To guard the Archives so that self-serving Alphas can’t re-write history. AmberHowl nominates SnowFang for this new position, and Luna Winter as new Chronicler.”
Well, he went right for it, didn’t he.
At least nobody broke outshouting. No one broke out in cheers either.
I got to my feet. Nobody told me to sit the fuck down.
“Grandfather,” I said, speaking directly to him for the first time in years, “I know that Birk of BlizzardFall became Alpha by True Challenge six weeks before my mother and Rodero of SilverPaw were officially mated. He was a Cruor Alpha. Did my mother choose Rodero to avoid Birk's bloody reign, or did you force her to take Rodero because SilverPaw was more advantageous?”
He looked up at me, shoulders bent by decades of politics. “I’ve suspected for years you were that bloody mutt’s spawn, and she spread her legs for him. Everyone says you favor your mother, but they never methim. He was a lone wolf in a pack of wolves. He wasnothinguntil he met her, and then he turned on his own pack, gutted and killed anyone who got in his way, twisted words like knives between ribs. Built her a den of gore. Every pup saw it on you. Every member of this Council saw it. They just didn’t know what they were seeing.”
“They were seeing a pup born under the stars Gaia ordained,” I said.
He half-crumbled at the waist as if he’d eaten a knee to the gut.
Now Sterling stood.
“We going home?” Jun asked as Sterling and I stepped down off the platform.
“Yes,” Sterling said. “We’re going home.”
No One's Plan But Ours
Gazelle pointed at my shoes with her phone.
“Too much?” I asked, flexing my ankle to admire the trashy shade of lavender with an equally trashy rhinestone koi fish glued along the side like flames on a cheap muscle car.
“Depends. You wearing those in public?”
“To an art auction. Modern art.” I could be my own performance piece.
Gazelle snickered.
“Ma’am,” the shop assistant who was bringing me such glorious shoes said, “there’s a matching purse.”
Gazelle sat up straight. “Sheneedsit.”
The purse was equal parts spectacularly crafted and utterly hideous. I didn’t want it, but Gazelle insisted that I’d face a lifetime of regret if I didn’t have a fish purse to match my fish shoes.
“You need fish stockings,” she said as we left the shop. A few determined paparazzi flocked behind us. One of Gazelle’s bodyguards walked ahead of us, and the other behind us, while Hamid flanked me within three yards.
“Like fishnet?” I asked.
She pulled out her phone. “No, these. I have the turtle ones. But they make goldfish.”
She showed me a picture from her social media feed of her sporting black nylons knitted with little metallic green and black turtles paired with an adorable pastel miniskirt in muted colors.
I caught movement at the edge of my vision. A wolf watching from a block up, standing at the corner, blending in. Not a wanderer: a GranitePaw.
Well, they could keep watching all they damn well pleased. I hadn’t heard a thing from them in the month since the Meeting, but the instant we’d arrived back in Manhattan, the GranitePaw had been on us, lurking and watching. There was even a new doorman at our building. He was very surly.
I looked at the sky. Blue. The buildings swayed, and the concrete shifted under my heels.
I quickly looked back down and suppressed the sudden need to run. City Sickness creeping back into my mind. AmberHowl supplied me with some very mild MoonDark edibles, which helped take the edge off, and gave a little insurance against a force-shift.
