I am still standing where the Alpha left me, blood drying on my lip, my shawl pulled up to my chin.
The hall stinks of fish and smoke, and not one soul asks if I am all right.
Then Trudie finds me by the door and her hand clamps around my elbow hard enough to make my fingers go numb.
Trudie: Smile, you stupid thing. The Alpha is right there and you look like a kicked dog.
I try to pull my arm back and her nails dig in through the wool.
Trudie: Don't you fucking pull away from me. One more stunt like that lip and I'll leave you in the cellar till the tide turns twice.
That is when the Alpha's boy runs past with a clay pot hugged to his chest and his foot catches the bench leg.
The pot goes down and hot fish stew sprays all over his hands and his jumper.
Jem yelps and shakes his burned fingers, and every grown wolf in that hall just watches him do it.
So I drop to my knees and take his hands in mine.
I wipe the stew off his fingers with the clean corner of my shawl, one hand and then the other.
Fenna: It's all right. It's just hot. Hold still for me, sweetheart.
Jem: It stings. It really stings.
Fenna: I know. There. See? All gone.
His little fingers curl around mine and hold on.
Then Trudie's voice comes down over my head like a bucket of cold water.
Trudie: Look at that. The stupid burden is on her knees again.
Trudie: Can't keep her own mouth shut, but she'll crawl after the Alpha's brat for free.
Some of the pack laugh. Coburn laughs loudest, with his mouth full of bread.
Coburn: She's good at cleaning up shit. That's about all she's good for.
Trudie hauls me up by the arm before I finish, and my shoulder jerks so hard my shawl drops off.
Trudie: Get up, you useless bitch. You are not his mother and you never will be.
Jem: She's not a burden!
Jem says it loud, with his chin shaking, and my heart cracks right down the middle.
Kester watches all of it from the front of the hall, his cup halfway to his mouth.
He sees his son's hands in the girl's hands, and something under his ribs pulls so hard it hurts.
His wolf is up under his skin again, twisting and sniffing, and he still cannot put a name to it.
The sight of her on her knees for Jem makes him want to put his fist through the bench.
Fergus: Alpha. Trudie will hurt her worse tonight if somebody doesn't say something.
Kester: Not my fucking problem.
But he does not look away. He watches her pick up her shawl and check the boy's hands one more time.
She looks at Jem like the boy matters more than the whole pack laughing at her.
And that stirs something in him he does not want, so he does what he always does with a thing he will not feel.
Kester: Fergus. Get Trudie's girl away from my son. Now.
The Alpha's voice carries over the whole hall, flat as a stone, and the words are about me.
He does not look at me when he says them. He looks past me, like I am a spill somebody should mop up.
Trudie smiles like she knew it all along and pats my cheek with a hard hand.
Trudie: Told you, girl. Even when you do a good thing, you're still the wrong thing.
On my way out I feel eyes on my back, and when I turn, the Alpha is watching me.
Then he blinks and looks away, and I tell myself I imagined it.