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Connor’s head tilted. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Another moment of watching him, and then an approving nod. A friendly clap to the shoulder that didn’t so much as hint at the gleam in his eyes before. “Good lad.”
Back inside they went.
9
This place smelled of green things. Of shoots pushing up through soil, and buds fattening on bare branches. Of the musk of foxes and lions as they shook off the drudgery of winter and started thinking of the finding and claiming of mates, the production of offspring. As a man, spring had always smelled to Leif of a damp sort of freshness, and felt like a new beginning.
Now, his wolf was restless. Itchy under his skin. Wanting something he couldn’t put a finger on. Each time he caught Ragnar’s gaze, Ragnar seemed toknow, and sent him a smirk that left Leif’s teeth grinding. The rest of the pack felt the same, if the way they snapped and fussed was any indication. Just last night, he’d had to pull two of them apart and order them to shift back; they’d sulked like children, muttering their “sorry, alpha”s while still sneaking glares at one another.
The land bridge made with Selesee magic was within sight, just a mile down the river, but Leif had decided to wait out the night here, on the Northern bank. Villages had dotted the way on their journey, hardy plank and shale homes and inns and shops built beside the river to make use of trade routes – when trade routes were run. Leif had expected to find them all burnt-out shells after the Sels had passed through, but they seemed untouched. Too small, he supposed, for an enemy such as theirs to bother with.
They had made camp this night just beyond the reach of one such village’s torchlight, settling down in the leaves in their wolf shapes, curled up against the cold, hearing distant human voices and twitching and fussing as the mustiness of spring teased their noses.
Restless, restless.Hungry.
Leif sensed Ragnar’s approach before he caught his scent.Brother. Pack. Mine.That grab of possession deep in his gut, the urge to growl caught in his throat. All of it made blurrier and harder to resist in this form.
Leif’s feelings about his cousin were complicated. The wolf’s were not. He refused to name the surge of gladness that welled in his chest as twigs snaps and the familiar scent grew stronger. Refused to accept that an animal couldlovelike that.
He lifted his head from his paws, and the grayscale branches parted to emit Ragnar, in his forced-constant human form, stepping into their clearing. A few of the others flicked their ears, but didn’t bother looking; they’d known it was Ragnar from a distance, same as Leif.
Ragnar was grinning, a knife-edge gleam of teeth in the dark that boded trouble. He crouched down in front of Leif, and said, “I want to show you something.”
Leif shifted into his human shape, blinked the dizziness it caused, and rubbed at a cramp in his left leg. On two legs, he wasn’t built to be curled up into a tight ball. “What?”
Ragnar stood. “Can’t tell you. You need to see it for yourself.”
Leif frowned. He wanted to argue – but that would get everyone else stirred up, circling, wondering who might next grow bold enough to challenge the alpha.
He could have grabbed Ragnar by the scruff and pressed his face down into the mud, bent his arm back until he squealed and submitted. That would serve dual purposes: putting him in his place, and showing the others they ought to remain obedient.
Leif did neither. He rolled his eyes, but stood, and followed.
They ducked under branches and stepped over old logs, the forest stunted and scrubby from the wind whipping off the water. Wind that, when Leif halted and turned Ragnar around with a snap of fingers, he hoped would cover most of their conversation. There were no secrets among wolves…but he found himself still craving a human sort of privacy at times.
“What?” he said again, and folded his arms, feet braced apart, so Ragnar would know he wasn’t going any farther until he’d had an explanation.
Ragnar braced himself on a tree trunk, bouncy on the balls of his feet, eager to keep moving. “I told you: you need to see for yourself.”
“Why?”
He heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Because I know that if I tell you where we’re going, you’ll drag me back by the collar, becausefunis no longer a part of your vocabulary. But” – he held up a hand when Leif tried to interrupt – “if you come with me, and catch a whiff for yourself, I think you’ll see the wisdom in my idea.”
“Speaking of vocabulary,” Leif drawled, “wisdomdoesn’t enter into yours.”
Ragnar huffed a sharp breath through his nose and snapped his teeth together, frustrated. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. Ifeelthat you can feel it, same as the others.”
Leif smoothed his expression, but his pulse gave a traitorous leap.
One that Ragnar could hear, could sense in this awful, wonderful, prickling bond between them. Leif’s wolf eyes were sharp enough to see his smirk in the dark.
Ragnar let go of the tree and stepped back toward him, old dead leaves and snow slush crackling underfoot. “Ah,” he murmured, low, in a tone that raised all the hairs on the back of Leif’s neck; too close, too…knowing. “You feel it. But maybe you don’t want to.” His head cocked, a completely lupine gesture. “Is that it?”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
