Page 98 of The SnowFang Secret


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“You do,” Searle said. “And a scratch, and a mouse.”

I hadn’t even seen that in the mirror, but I hadn’t been looking. I sighed and told the waitress. “Grappling practice, I guess. Ate that elbow.”

“You tried to eat it, but you clearly didn’t manage to swallow it,” Searle commented.

Wait. Had Searle just cracked ajoke? I snickered into my coffee. “So I was like one of those snakes that tore itself in two trying to swallow a gazelle?”

“She has at least sixty pounds on you.” Searle replied, deadpan.

The waitress chuckled and headed off.

I grumbled to myself. I’d been workingsohard with Jun to bulk up to one thirty-five, and I’d wasted away down to barely one-fifteen after my injuries. I’d become downright scrawny and I hated it. “So Marcella’s almost one-eighty?”

“Something like that. I’ve grappled with her. She’s heavier than she looks, and it’s all muscle. As you found out.”

I sulked into my coffee and indulged in some pointless jealousy. Granted, Marcella had a bigger frame and was flirting with six feet while I was barely five-seven, butstill. I was practically a runt now, and it would takemonthsto get back all that strength.

“She’s meaner than you too,” Searle said, sipping his coffee.

“Now you’re just being insulting.” Although it was a relief—even if a bit disconcerting—to actually talk to Searle like he and I weren’t two wolves stuck existing on the same territory and each being unwilling to share.

Searle paused in his sip. “Fair enough. I suppose we’ll find out.”

A Victory Nobody Wanted

Searle didn’t have much to say after our food had arrived, but he had taken me to the feedmill and given me the tour, which had been (actually) interesting and something I’d appreciated. A number of AmberHowl seemed to work the mill, but also an equal number of humans, and the grain processing was fairly technical and specific, with Searle having to manage an equal balance of machinery, people, money, landowners, and persnickety clients who wanted very specific grain blends for their prized cows or racehorses. His little office was crammed with old calendars featuring Cow of the Month or Horse of the Month or win photos of race horses and assorted prize winning livestock.

He shared that they were one of the few remaining custom mills left in the region, focusing on ethical labor standards and sourcing from Gaia-friendly farmers and such and such. The mill wasn’t about to make anyone rich, but it provided a respectable income for the pack, and the wolves who worked in it, plus the local human community. He took a great deal of pride in it.

AmberHowl was what GranitePaw wanted to be: a pack that had figured out how to be worldly, yet feral,andprestigious.

I didn’t get a lot of time to mull it over before we got summoned back to the house.

“It seems you have won,” Searle told me, checking his texts while we stood in the yard of the mill.

“Or I’m being summoned for another beating.”

“That too.” He pocketed his phone. “Let’s go.”

Marcella and Demetriuswere in the office they shared. Neither looked or smelled particularly happy. But they also didn’t smell particularly pissed off. The fact that they had mutually taken the day off their respective jobs spoke volumes.

Demetrius, hands folded in his lap, told me, “We’re going to Norway.”

That wasn’t a statement that required a reaction from me beyond animating my face to indicate polite acknowledgement. Searle also showed no reaction to the fact I’d won in a power tussle between myself and Marcella.

“I’ve informed Alpha Mikkel,” Demetrius added.

Yet another statement that required no reaction from me.

Demetrius looked at Searle, then back at me. “Searle is going as well.”

“Searle?” I asked instantly. “Alpha Demetrius, Searle doesn’t know.”

That and I didn’t want to spend numerous hours in a contained space alone with Searle. Buried in the Archives chasing some stray facts through the old records until July sounded like the only way I was going to keep a grip until July.

I couldn’t let the despair have me.

“Searle is, at this point, entitled to know just how deep you are into this,” Demetrius said darkly. “He’s seen the pendant. He knows how you found it. I have informed Mikkel,out of curtesy, there will be visitors to the Archives—which are proximate to, but specifically not in his territory—and that if he takes issue with it, he can take it up with the Elder Council this summer.”

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