tight, dark green eyes that went over me once and then over the pack house behind me, and boots that

of a bow. "I am Selin. My Alpha sends his greetings an

a can ask

e her coat, sealed with red wax. "But a letter cannot answe

foot of the table, Maren by the wall with her basket still on her arm. Cemal was brought in last between

will answer for himself. He claims the bond. Th

at I belonged to a pack in the south that is gone now. Six weeks ago I was on the lower coast, and something began to pull me north. I followed

u decided it had, and dressed

knows anything else. I smelled hers at the cairn and I have smelled it every hour since.

room and said the same," Orhan s

say. Only the

of the table with my palms flat on the wood and

Smoke from the kitchen, the warriors' damp coats, the tallow of the lamps. And under all of it, Cemal. Woodsmoke and

words came in a rhythm that belonged to a room with walls and a teacher in it, a cadence he had practised on someone el

d," I said. "The el

hard. "You will not tell

he elders test him. If the claim is false, the false mate pays the price written in the old laws. If it is tru

is mouth. Orhan looked at me for a

e days from now. Until then the stranger stays in the pack house under t

in found me by the window be

re is a story on the roads that the Kırkkaya Luna is a sh

em what

where Cemal had gone. "The rogue is handsome.

face her. "S

s tongue." She smiled and set her cup on the sill. "Read the letter again, Luna.

western gate. Her boots were dry. The road from Çamlıca ran down through

s sitting on the bench with his bandage changed and his black ha

l them what you

m what I co

n without eating. "You smelled the lie on me in the hall. Hal

what I am goi

k i

th my arms folded. "You did not learn them on a road. The rhythm was wron

e lamp between us threw his shadow up

ething else

N

by a wolf who took me in when I was a boy. He taught me how to speak to Alphas and how to stand in a council

was hi

ever you smelled in that hall, the pull I felt on the road was real. If the test at the full moon finds me

They do not

He held my eyes. "

was cold and clear, and the moon hung three days short of full over the pines,

door with his stick in his hand,

will pass the

know

do not smell that mark on him. What I smell on him is fear, and fear is not the same thing as guilt." He turned toward the door. "But there is another scent in

oming down off the pines, and the letter in my pock

anterns burned, one of the young wolves shou