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“You weredisobedient!” he shouted.
Oh, my mossy rock was angry. “I was doing my job as a Chronicler, not getting into a fight over the last taco.”
He stalked to my side of the bed, seething with anger. “Show at leastsomecontrition! Or do you like going hungry?”
“Youcan still eat. Go get dinner.”
Searle had come in late from the mill, so he was stuck with the leftovers, but nobody had banishedhimfrom eating. Searle could go eat, and it would communicate to the pack he didn’t approve of my behavior, and providing even more distance from my antics. Under normal circumstances, this would have been devastating to the mate. Abandoned by packandmate. Should have gone outside and howled sad apology songs all night.
I was a lousy singer in any form.
“You don’tcare? You’ve been punished with food, and you don’t care?” He yanked the pillow off me and tossed it away. I snarled, he grabbed both of my hands and examined them, then did the same with my feet. “Have you turned self-destructive?”
Chew marks!? He was looking for chew marks to see if I’d been gnawing on my paws?! “No.”
He released my feet. “You’re acting irrational. Even for you.”
“Holy relics from dreams tend to rattle my cage,” I said barbishly. “Especially when Elder Lunas are more interested in what the other Elders will say than figuring out why Gaia is literally throwing physical objects at us.”
He braced himself with his hands on either side of me. “Did you come back from Floridapregnant? Or did that wolf catch you during your little Equinox outing?”
“No.” I’d shifted during Equinox, so unless I’d already had ovulated when I’d seen Sterling, there was more or less no chance. Florida? That’d be a matter of days.
Except, well, Gaiawasthrowing holy relics at us.
He shoved his face into my neck. He inhaled deeply. “No, but you don’t smell right.”
How the fuck was Isupposedto smell? Pain sparkled through my scar and down into my fingers. The veil of anger rotted away, and all the grief and anguish poured through me. Sterling had walked away. He’d chosen the date and time ofourdeath. He hadn’t asked, he hadn’t consulted, he hadn’t talked.
Just like he’d given me tothislife, and I’d woken up in it.
And maybe it had all been necessary, maybe it had all been right, maybe it had been the only real thing to do.
Andhewas the one with his life on the line.Hewas the one who had to get into that ring with Alan. Andhewas doing it becauseIhad fucked up.
The tangle of emotions turned into an excruciating knot that stole my breath.
Not that I was going to tell Searle any of it. I was alone with my grief. “Go shower and find some dinner.”
“I’ll go shower,” he said. “But I won’t get dinner.”
“You don’t need to go hungry.” Hewashungry. And about as rattled as a normal AmberHowl would be at being sent away without a meal.
“You can eat.”
“No.” He said it in that stubborn tone of his. He shrugged off his shirt. He wadded it up in his big hands, chucked it in the hamper, then undid his belt. “I will finish my book. It’s gotten to a rather good part.”
Transactional
Now, there were two ways this food banishment etiquette could play out. In one version, I attempted to approach the food. In the other, I waited until I was specifically invited back for food. Usually, in SilverPaw, the first version was used unless the banishment specifically required permission. And usually the wolf being punished was so desperate they’d show up to grovel.
My father had almost never used food banishment as a punishment. And every wolf he had used it on had broken in short order.
I did not feel near to breaking.
Maybe because I was already broken.
Or perhaps because this wasn’t my pack in anything but name.
