“That’s different,” he said as Bron finally ripped a chunk of venison free to chew.
She boggled at him, mouth too full to speak, then spat the half-chewed cud of meat back into her hand to demand “How?”
“That’s disgusting!” Danny said.
“I’m pregnant,” Bron snapped back at him. “You can’t call me that.”
“I saw you eat your own boogers once. I can call you what I like.” True but, Danny supposed, off-topic. He stepped back and took a deep breath as he tried to find the years he’d been away and grown up. “I’m just saying that… Jack isJack.”
“Oh, well, I see why the world couldn’t get on without your wits at their university,” Bron said. She tossed the wet bite of venison into the fire and chewed on the edge of the rest with sharp, white teeth. “Jack is Jack, and Gregor is Gregor. Congratulations, you explained twins.”
“Gregor’s a nutcase,” Danny snapped. “He saved my life, and I’ve travelled with him, and Istillthink he’s an unpredictable lunatic. Why would you want to tie yourself to him?”
Bron shrugged. “It wasn’t aplan. I just screwed him and then realized I was pregnant with this one.” She poked the high, distended curve of her belly. “Why not? Get it over with early, prove to them all that I’m not going to throw a dog.”
It could have been cruel, but Bron was too blunt for that. It was the difference between a cut and a body blow. Danny grimaced anyhow.
“At least you’ll get to sit out the end of the world,” he said.
Bron rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “I was never going to raise it, you numpty. Gregor would have while I went to Glasgow or somewhere, took a pack and proved I wasn’tjustmy mother’s daughter. I’d have come back, but I’m not sitting out the Winter to babysit some wean.”
“Yourwean,” Danny said. “It’s not babysitting when it’syourbaby.”
Bron gave him a sharp sideways smile. “Modern women don’t stay home, Danny. They join Fenris’s Pack and winnow the world. Didn’t your fancy education teach you that?”
He glared at her. She looked smug as she ripped a bite from her venison. Her jaw moved as she chewed noisily just to annoy him.
“Leave her alone,” Kath said as she came downstairs. Her hair was wet, slick to her head like a seal, and a mosaic of green and blue bruises ran from her cheekbone down under her dress. They looked a week old already. “Your sister knows her own mind. If the baby makes it, they’ll thrive with the Pack. Most do.”
Not all, Danny thought,but fine.
Danny swallowed the old, prickly urge to defend the “normalcy” of the nonwolf world. It was Bron’s decision. Maybe she’d change her mind when she held the child. Or she wouldn’t. Danny imagined the look on Nick’s face when he realized he was going to have to raise his mate’s pup. It tried to be funny, but he was too tired to appreciate it.
“Did you check her bones?” he asked. “Rose?”
“Who?” Bron asked.
“No one,” Kath said. She ran her hand over her head and flicked water away from the nape of her neck. “Go and have a bath, Bron. You stink.”
Bron glanced between them and then curled her lip. She tossed her jerky onto the table and stalked to the stairs, past Kath.
“Fine,” she spat down at them. “You talk about your smart things. I’ll go upstairs and think about proper wolf things, like deer and biting.”
Kath sighed and waited until she heard the door slam upstairs. “She’s always been so jealous of you,” she said. “It’s childish.”
Of him? Danny gave Kath a dubious look. His sister wasn’t jealous. She was too cocky about her wolfskin to spare time on anything else. It probably wasn’t the time to disillusion his mam that she’d royally spoiled her youngest.
“Did you—”
“Yes,” Kath said sharply before he could finish the question. “She’s gone. Just old stones and rags where she was. It doesn’t mean she’s alive. The Wild could have claimed her.”
“It didn’t,” Danny said. “Do you have any idea what she wants with Bron?”
“Because I crossed her?” Kath asked as she hooked a stool out from under the table with one foot and sat down. “I could have worked that out myself.”
“It might not be about you,” Danny said. He leaned against the table and fastidiously poked Bron’s gnawed strip of meat to the side of the platter. A smaller bit did for him, old habits about taking the last pickings from the bone. It was only when he took a bite that he realized how hungry he was. Through the mouthful, he said, “Did she have a daughter?”
“Yes,” Kath said slowly. “Alice. We were… friends?”
