From Varek's side: I stood at the window of the keep with my hand pressed to the wound in my side.
The cut was closing fast. The memory of her was not closing at all.
Vidar came in with rain running off his harness and shook it out of his beard.
Vidar: Nothing. We walked the ridge twice and checked every empty building from the tower down to the river.
Varek: Then walk it a third time.
Vidar: The men are tired, Alpha. Some of them think you're chasing a story.
Varek: I don't give a fuck what they think. Walk it again.
I knew she was real. My teeth had been in her shoulder, and the taste of her had not left my mouth since.
A wolf does not imagine a bond. He feels it in his bones, and it never lies.
Vidar: One thing. A shepherd came down this morning swearing he saw a woman on the tower stairs. He wanted coin for it.
Varek: Bring him to me.
They dragged him in by the collar and dropped him on the stone.
He was a thin man in a wet coat, and he started talking before his knees stopped sliding.
I put my hand around his throat and lifted him until his boots left the floor.
My thumb found the pulse and pressed until it stuttered under the skin.
Varek: You sold me a lie for coin. In my own town. In front of my Beta.
He made a wet sound and clawed at my wrist. His nose was already bleeding from the drop onto the stone.
Varek: If I hear you speak of that tower again, I'll cut your tongue out and feed it to the yard dogs.
Varek: Do you believe me?
He believed me. I could smell it on him, sharp and sour.
I let go and he hit the stone hard and stayed down.
Varek: Get him out.
The council was waiting in the fire hall. Morven sat nearest the flame, in her black shawl.
Morven: You spend your men on a ghost, Alpha. The pack is talking.
Morven: Talk turns to doubt. Doubt turns to a knife in the dark. You need a wife from this valley and you need an heir.
Morven: Take a local bride. Any unmated woman in Gloamridge would climb your stairs for the chance.
I thought about the woman who had climbed my stairs in the rain, smelling of heat and ink.
She wasn't in that room. She wasn't anywhere I had looked.
Morven: The wool trader's daughter. A widow from the timber side.
Morven: And there's the Harker girl. The half-blood bitch with the ink on her dress.
Morven: She's nothing, but she's here. That's more than your ghost.
I remembered the ink running down her sleeve and her chin held up through the laughing.
Varek: I'll pick from the valley before the week is out.
Morven sat back and folded her thin hands.
Morven: Then say it in front of the council. We'll have something to show the pack besides a locked tower.
When they had gone, Vidar stayed by the door with his arms crossed.
Vidar: You gave in fast. You don't want a bride. You want her.
Varek: Find her. That's the order.
I stood in the empty hall and closed my eyes and found her anyway.
Wet braid. Small hands on my chest. Her voice breaking on please.
Somewhere in this valley a woman carried my mark and hid it from me.
I would keep looking. And in the meantime, I would take a bride.