He scooped her up and cradled her so close to him, so gently. She pressed her face to his chest a moment, inhaled the good safe scent of her wolf. She pressed her palm there too, felt his strong heart beating, and then she nodded that she was ready, and he set her into one of the chairs and took the one beside it. Malachi took a chair too, across from her so she could see his every move.
“I’ve seen you in town before,” she said.
Malachi nodded. “When I have business there. Not for recreation.”
“But your eyes weren’t gold then.”
“Contacts,” he said. “Without them, most humans can’t hold a conversation with me.”
“Not even with you shielding your gaze?”
“Not even then, not with me.”
“And they don’t acclimate, like I just did.”
“They’re not able to look at me long enough for that. The contacts function both to conceal my true eye color, which would be a lupine giveaway, and to shield my gaze further.”
“But you didn’t wear them today, knowing a wimpy human would be showing up with Ezra.”
His chest rumbled, the thunderstorm again. “My pack, my home. I won’t be muted here.”
She nodded. All made sense. He’d saidlupine, but that too made sense the way Ezra had explained it, a wolf speaking from a perspective not his own. “And I had to be able to acclimate even to you, if I’m going to stick around.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got a ton of questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead.”
“Are your eyes gold and terrifying because you’re an alpha?” That had come out slightly unfiltered, but Malachi showed no offense.
“In a way. My DNA is seventeen percent wolf, rather than the standard fourteen percent. It’s the reason for my size and eye color. And seventeen-percent wolves are always alphas.”
“What if there were two of you in the same pack?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Then one would leave.”
A shiver ran down her spine, but his words weren’t dangerous for her. She searched her brain for more questions. This wolf was the keeper of their lore. He could give her so much information, and he was willing.
“Do you know when the first wolf was born? Does the lore have a record of it?” Ezra hadn’t known the answer to this one.
Malachi leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, and the motion only made him look more of a giant. “Truth and facts.”
A smile found her through the depletion of the adrenaline aftermath. “That’s me. I guess Ezra mentioned it.”
“He did.”
Beside her Ezra kept quiet; but when she glanced to him, his eyes were shining.
“What?” she said.
Ezra motioned to her and Malachi, and a smile broke over his face. “This. You, grilling Mal the first chance you get. And Mal, revealing lore to you, things I’ve never bothered to ask him. I can sit here the rest of the day and just listen to y’all.”
Malachi’s thunderstorm rumble came again, and he smiled. “To answer your question, Willow, the earliest recorded birth of a wolf pup was about seven hundred years ago. It’s clear he wasn’t the first known at the time, based on the wording of the history. But we don’t know anything dating further back.”
“Wow,” she said, and then her filter failed her again. “Um, do you have a cold?”
Now his rumble held amusement. “Not a cold, not a throat injury, not a smoker’s rasp. Just me.”
