She grabbed his ear and pulled his head back so he had to look at her. “I make pretty kids, Danny, but not that pretty. If you told them their da was dead and Lach had taken their crown, they’d have gotten back quicker, been taken earlier. Nothing would have changed, except the prophets would have you as well. What good would that do anyone? What good would it do your sister?”
Danny grabbed her wrist. He didn’t know which of them was more surprised.
“Don’t.”
“Or?”
Another of her old lessons. Danny hadn’t forgotten any of them, though.
“I make pinching my ear more trouble than it’s worth,” he said. “Let go, Mam.”
She did and then startled him by pressing her cold palm against his hot ear. Like a balm, or an apology. Except Kath never apologized to anyone.
“I swear,” she said earnestly, “when I asked you to do this, I didn’t think Jack and Gregor would be in danger. There should have been time to warn them, to plan what to do next. They’re the Old Man’s only sons. The last thing I expected was for Lachlan to try and murder them on their own doorstep. That’s not how we do things. Whoever this woman he talks about is—this prophet—she’s fucked the good sense out of him.”
Danny rubbed his neck. Sometimes he could still feel the constriction of the leather when he swallowed.
“Nick—the dark man with Gregor—said she was his grandmother,” he said. “Rose Blake.”
Kath abruptly pulled her hand away. “No,” she said. “He’s wrong.”
“More than you know,” Danny agreed with a grimace. It bothered him a little that he still had a wolf’s insular rejection to anything different to them, but he couldn’t help it. It bothered him more that Gregor was more adaptable than he was, but he couldn’t helpthateither. He leaned his elbows on his bag and looked up at Kath. This close he could make out her face, but it blurred as she stepped away from him. “But he probably knows her name. Do you know her?”
“No. Iknewher,” Kath said. She raked her fingers through her hair to slick the half-frozen curls back from her face. “She was no prophet, though. Just a mad bitch of a wolf that the Old Man had to put down.”
“Why?”
“Because she deserved it,” Kath said flatly. “It doesn’t matter why. Whoever raised this Nick, it wasn’t her. I threw the dirt on her face myself.”
There was an uneasy undertone to her voice. Danny hesitated, but the other prophets in Girvan had known the name too. They’d never questioned it….
“What if it is?” Danny said carefully. “If I knew what she did—”
“If it was her—if itisher—then Bron’s already dead,” Kath said quietly. There was no doubt in her voice. “So why would I send her my son to gut too? You want to try and save Jack, don’t convince me it’s her. I won’t let you go. Let the Old Man worry about his blood, and I’ll worry about mine.”
“You can’t stop me.” Kath turned toward him, and Danny smiled crookedly at her. “Dog or not, I’m your kid. When did anyone ever stopyoudoing whatyouwanted?”
He waited and Kath finally walked back to him. She sighed heavily and stroked his hair back from his face.
“I brought the books, the maps you asked for,” she said. “Do you really think you can do it? Find the prophet’s temple on this side of the Wild? Find where they took the children and the dogs?”
Danny glanced down at the bag still in his lap. He could feel the weight of the books against his thigh. He wanted to say no, to shed that responsibility, but now it wasn’t just his sister he needed to find.
“I can,” he said. “Mam, if it is Rose Blake, do you know why she was exiled?”
Kath’s fingers tightened around the back of his head, and then she leaned down to press a cold-lipped kiss to his forehead. She didn’t pull away immediately but rested her head against his. Uncertain of how to respond, Danny froze awkwardly. His mother loved him as best she could. He’d always known that, like he’d always known it wasn’t enough. Kath wasn’t a woman to be casually demonstrative. A sentimental moment was hand on a shoulder or nod of approval as she hauled you up out of the mud. The last time she’d kissed him had been his first day of school. Under the expectant eyes of other parents, she realized more than a sandwich and a brusque “Do well” was expected.
From what Danny remembered, he’d felt a lot like this about it—frozen uncomfortably to the spot. He hadn’t understood school at that point, and the kiss had seemed like a formal goodbye. Someone had been there to take him home at the end of the day, but it had felt like something released. This had the same finality, and for a moment, Danny felt the old, frantic desire to cling to his mother.
“She wasn’t exiled, she was executed,” she said as she drew back. “But did you ever wonder why the Old Man was kind to dogs?”
Danny shrugged. “We’re useful,” he said. The rationale was one he’d heard often enough to have off by heart growing up. There was always a wolf ready to grumble because the Old Man kept his dogs, insisted they be treated as pack even if they were at the bottom of the pecking order. “It makes dealing with humans easier, and there’s nowhere to live anymore where you don’t have to deal with humans.”
“You are, and that’s why he let Millie and the like hang around. He was never kind, though, until he had a dog,” Kath said. “A daughter, before the twins, but with their ma.”
That was new information. Danny blinked as he tried to absorb it and then grimaced as his mind made grim sense of it. He’d always known that his mam loved him, because she kept him when she had old, dark options she could have picked instead.
“He got rid of her,” Danny said. “Sacked her.”
