Evie
That’s why we have laws and customs in the first place.
I drop my jeans and shirt over the back of the Adirondack chair at the end of the dock.
Sometime, somewhere, some ancestor did a bad thing and fell in love with the wrong wolf.
Holding my nose, I jump in, the water a frigid slap against my overheated skin. I spread my body out across the surface so the water at my back lifts me, the wind at my front caresses me. I paddle slowly toward the other side.
I don’t know what happened to that ancestor, but probably that strong wolf found out and challenged the wrong wolf, and in the end, the wrong wolf was defeated. The difference being that was a pack challenge, and pack challenges are about submission, not death.
This was where I made myself small so I could sink down where no one would find me, except Constantine, who found me and saved me. There was something sweet about it, the worry on his face, as though he imagined that I was the kind of wolf who might conceivably need saving.
Why did he have to do this? I know he doesn’t like Poul, but couldn’t he have pretended to offer him the respect due him as Alpha of the 10th? I’ve put up with so much shit from Poul… Why couldn’t Constantine have done this one thing? My love always has to be so encompassing. Couldn’t he have lowered his eyes and let me keep this little love that’s all our own, just us two?
Pulling my legs in and wrapping my arms around my knees, I make my body small again and sink deep into the water, my wolf’s metabolism letting me stay there for a long time. On my second time down, the water around me ripples around me, above me. I know who it is circling around me, just like he did when he was looking for me before.
Breaking through the surface, I swim as best I can for the Holm. Constantine moves faster and is already there.
“Did he challenge you?” I ask, squeezing the water from my hair.
“Yes.”
I shiver as the cool air of the summer evening hits my damp skin.
“Don’t say it, Evie.”
“You have to apologize to him.”
He shakes his head. “I will not apologize to him.”
“You have to apologize, Constantine. If you were Pack, you could submit. At its heart, a challenge is bravado. We are all in this together. We don’t want to destroy one another. But you are not Pack, this is not bravado, and Poul does want to destroy you. He doesn’t have to, but you embarrassed him: you called him a traitor, you made him bleed. And he will.”
“He won’t be the first person who’s tried to kill me.”
“Not wild. You were almost killed by a pig. Fighting wild means getting close. It means lashing at a mouth filled with more teeth than you thought existed moving at speeds you can’t see. It means fighting someone who knows what you are going to do before you do. We are hunters to our core. For us, fighting is just a hunt with fewer rules.”
He reaches out his hand the way he has before, like when he wants to comfort me. “Don’t… Don’t touch me,” I say and pull away, rubbing my arm with my knuckles.
“You were the one who said ‘sorry’ was a hard word for wolves. Pity and regret. Well, I don’t pity him and don’t regret what I’ve done, so how can I apologize?”
Looking across the water, I pull at one of the strands of my hair, stretching it out long. The lights of the Great Hall are out now, wolves dispersed across Homelands, some in cabins, most among the trees.
“I’ve never said no to a fight, Evie. I’m not going to start now. Not with him.”
I let the strand go, watching as it pops back into a tight spiral.
“Then he will kill you. And I will have to watch.”