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Ruth returned all of my possessions except my cell phone. “I left it in the car,” she explained. “No service out here.”
So I had to take her word for it that Justice was fine. That she’d stashed him under the bridge where no one was likely to find him. That she’d used speed dial on his phone to alert Bastion of his state.
Her patience with reassuring me only lasted a few seconds however. Then her voice turned intense.
“No matter what Aunt May said, this isn’t a game,” Ruth informed me. “Our pack is sleeping rough in the forest because it’s easier to defend ourselves if there are no roads nearby. Luke is out from dawn until dark patrolling this not-really territory to keep out lone wolves. It’s only a matter of time until the packs we’re really worried about find out our clan is rotten in the center. I refuse to let our alpha be distracted at such a critical time.”
Her words had weight, especially combined with the way Luke had recoiled when he saw my mating scar. “I screwed up,” he’d told me. “When I bit you.”
It hurt that the mark on my neck was so obviously wrong by the standards of Luke and his sister. But I was in a skinless world, so I needed to learn from skinless.
Or accept their advice and leave their world so Luke and I could reunite in mine.
Aloud, I only said: “I get it. Luke needs time to fix the pack so he can leave it. That’s why I’m here.”
Another snort as Ruth cocked her head. “Is it? Or are you here because I threw you in the trunk, woelfin?”
I started to answer, but she shook her head. Wolf ears had heard something I missed. “Get dressed,” she ordered.
“Try not to bark orders,” I countered.
Still, Ruth was right. I barely had time to hide my pelt beneath clothes before the pack crested the hilltop. It was fully dark now, so I felt more than saw the surge of wolf bodies rushing toward us. Too intertwined to distinguish. Too many to count.
Here and there, though, I caught the glint of eyes in the darkness. Smelled signature aromas—damp pennies, cold pizza, a discarded feather from a hawk.
There was no light other than the moon. No sound beyond the crunch of leaves beneath paws and my own harsh breathing. I used a tree trunk to guard my back, gripping the hilt of my sword hard even though the blade rested deceptively alongside my thigh.
A hint of sweet cinnamon suggested Luke was present also, but he didn’t prevent the strange skinless from pressing around me, sniffing, testing. When they shifted in tandem, the transformation raised hairs up and down my arms.
Their faces were far enough away so their voices ran together:
“This is the sword maiden?”
“Why doesn’t she run with us?”
“She smells like our alpha.”
Complaints, annoyance, interest. I must have pulled the skinless from warm beds for this ceremony. Was that why the ones milling around me were all male, mostly young?
Or, no, I was wrong. They weren’t all male. Aunt May spoke so close to my left shoulder it felt like she’d read my mind.
“Step back. Give the sword maiden room to breathe.”
I felt more than saw as the skinless receded into a broad circle. Smelled females gathering into the gap.
“Come.” This was Ruth, reaching out her hand to draw me forward. “We’ll start with the washing. It’s important the pack smells the change on you. Right now, you reek of two-legger perfume.”
It wasn’t perfume. More like soap and shampoo. Still, I stumbled after her, relieved when the brightening glow of moonlight allowed me to see who was walking on either side of me.
There were women present beyond Aunt May and Ruth. Four of them. Three old women and....
“Carly?”
The girl cocked her head at me, uncertain how I knew her name when we’d never been introduced. Rather than clue her in, I released the question that had been pulsing through me ever since the pack showed up in a haze of testosterone. “Are the children with their mothers?”
An old woman sighed. Ruth snorted. Aunt May was the one who answered.
“This is all of us. And there’ll be one fewer once Carly’s betrothal is finalized.” A squeak from the girl didn’t quite overwhelm the old woman’s return to the original subject. “Come. It’s time to get you washed.”
***
WE PICKED OUR WAY DOWN into a mossy gully where a spring bubbled up out of the ground. “It’s safe to drink,” Carly murmured. Only then did I realize that my throat was raw from a day spent comatose followed by a mad dash and emotionally-charged conversation. I pressed my entire face into the water, letting the icy cold tingle across my tongue.
“There’s mint downstream,” Aunt May barked, sending Carly scurrying away from me. Like a child, not a teenager. Was the girl really old enough to be married? Mated? What did betrothal mean to skinless?
That thought fled along with Carly. It was hard to focus on anyone except myself when five sets of eyes bored into me. I was relieved when Ruth barked out a command.
“Turn around.”
“She doesn’t have anything we don’t have, girlie.” This was the oldest of the women. They were all naked. I was the only one clothed.
Clothed...with a pelt hiding beneath woven fabric. Unbeknownst to them, I really did possess something they did not.
So I waited. And, eventually, they humored me. The older women wandered off as a unit to sit on a boulder and discuss something I could only half hear. Words like “Girls” and “shy” and “mating moon” drifted toward me, but I blocked out their teasing. Stripped. Washed in ice-cold water that was much less pleasant on the outside than it had been on my throat.
While I splashed, Ruth whispered directly into my ear. “When the time comes for the cut, don’t flinch.” Her voice was nearly silent, low enough so the old women might not have heard her. She shuffled her feet in newly fallen leaves to further cover up the sound as she explained. “Even though you’re leaving him, your weakness would reflect badly on the alpha.”
“The alpha,” not “Luke,” not “my brother.” I nodded even though I could barely see her in the moonlight.
Then minty air breathed across me. Carly had returned.
“Is this enough?” The girl’s voice was hesitant. As if growing up amid so many men and so few women had turned her mouselike. Was that why she didn’t reject a betrothal I couldn’t imagine she wanted? Was Michael—younger than her, even though technically her uncle—the only one to whom she could speak her true mind?
I had no idea of the answer, but I built her up anyway. “It’s perfect. Good job, Carly.”
The girl’s shadow form straightened in front of me then sank back in upon herself as Ruth snorted. Did that woman do nothing other than snort?
Okay, no, she also bit out orders: “Carly, turn around. Honor, if you intend to dress again, hurry. Leave your neck bare.”
I slid into my pelt, using the magnets Ruth had returned with my clothes to draw the edges closed around my belly rather than around my neck this time. Clothes stuck to damp skin as I yanked fabric on over the fur, causing my outfit to ruck up in strange ways.
Grace would have been horrified at my breach of fashion etiquette. I was more concerned by the suspicion that my pelt wouldn’t stay in place if I was forced to move rapidly.
I’d just have to hope there was no reason to run.