“Gran was not a pie person, though she sometimes pretended otherwise to be polite,” Winter says quietly. “Deep down, she was always suspicious of hot fruit.”
I don’t know why that makes my chest feel tight.
“We’ll assume it’s on unless we hear otherwise,” Ty says then, like it’s a done deal with invitations. “And to be clear, I also love a pie.”
He steers me out of the house, leaving Winter gazing up at the sparkling tree with that wistful expression I saw earlier. Out in the dark, he propels me along with his hard hand heavy on my neck. I snuggle into it.
We both pause in the yard, looking for movement in the shadows, but there’s nothing.
“I like the idea of this Christmas dinner,” I say when we start moving again. “It’s not like the solstice was all fun and games. Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to take a time-out and get to do a little community building outside the den.”
“You think that’s how this works? Time-outs and celebrations for shit that has to happen whether we celebrate it or not?” He’s not starting a fight. I can hear the difference in his voice. It’s a quiet question and not undeserved, either.
I stop walking. “I think that we’re going to have to figure out how to create space.” I think about the week I spent in the den and howcloseit all is. I think about the grand cavern and how so much of wolf society is how we perform in public, because everything is so public. More importantly, I think about how little I’ve really seen of Ty since the solstice, and when I have, if I want to really talk to him, we’ve had to leave the den. “Things are different now. In the den, you can’t take a step without everyone all over you for every little thing. Maybe it’s time that we made it a little harder to access you.”
“I grew up with that kind of king,” Ty says flatly. “It’s not going to be me.”
“I’m not talking about random hierarchies to keep people at a distance,” I say patiently. I haven’t thought about this with everything else that’s been going on, but now that I am, it makes sense. “You already have that with your lieutenants and all your biker roles, by the way. I’m talking about space. You actually don’t need to know who’s being mean to who in the kitchen. That’s not information you need to have as it happens. People shouldn’t be able to simply run into you in a tunnel and unload on you.”
I can feel his resistance all over him, but he doesn’t shut me down. “It’s worked fine so far.”
“We’re not the same pack that we’ve been all this time,” I tell him. “That’s a good thing. This is a time of transition. There’s a lot going on, and if you can’t figure out how to take some time away from it, you’re going to burn out. Then what use are you to anyone?”
Ty looks like he wants to say something then, but he doesn’t. He starts walking instead, still guiding me with that hand on my neck, so I walk with him. The moment we leave Winter’s yard and let the woods swallow us up, I notice that I can scent wolves—pack—as we go.
Those protection details I’ve been certain were canceled.
“Funny how there are people watching out for us now that you’re here.” I laugh as I say it. “There weren’t earlier, though there were the other night. The ass-kissing is on point.”
He gives me a sharp look. “What do you mean?”
We’ve made it to the path that snakes down and around to the den now, heading toward that same little tunnel that’s even spookier in the dark.
“I thought you canceled—” I begin.
But I don’t finish.
Because the scent hits us both at the same time, like a blow to the face.
Blood.
Ty snarls and crouches down, looking around like he expects an actual attack to follow. I shift in a rush, certain that if I can smellthat muchblood, it’s safer to be in wolf form. Where I have much bigger teeth and sharper claws.
I move forward along the path, and the smells areloud.
They hit at me, bold and hot, and it takes me a moment to parse them. To do more than simplyreactto them.
I keep moving until I’m inside the tunnel, and that’s when I see them. Two bodies. Two bodies slashed and hacked beyond all recognition. There’s so much blood I can’t immediately tell what kind of bodies these are, even though the carcasses are much bigger than anything I’ve seen left for us before.
This time there are little treats left behind. The severed heads of the creatures in question. One a stag, the other a doe.
They sit there, lifeless eyes and matted fur, in the center of piles of guts all tangled up with each other so it’s impossible to see which is which.
“Feels like a threat,” Ty says from behind me. He moves closer, and I can see the muscle in his jaw working as he stares down at the scene before us. “Never did like being threatened.”
He looks back over at me and nods. I take that as the command it is. I throw back my head and let out a howl, alerting the nearby sentries. As well as the rest of the pack.
They all come running, in human and wolf forms.
