Chapter 3 The Law of Hospitality

The howls faded as quickly as they had come, rolling back along the ridge until the night went quiet again, and that quiet was worse than the noise. Finn stood beside me with his hand on the knife and did not move for a long count of breaths.

"Those were border calls," he said at last. "Someone is testing how far they can come."

"Torin does not test. He measures." I turned to the bothy door. "I need to get Ronan out of here before they find the south slope."

"And go where? The passes are watched and the low road is full of men who want your brother dead." He caught my wrist before I could reach the door, and the touch went through me like heat through cold water. "You came to my border for shelter. Let me give you shelter."

I looked down at his hand. "Your law says rogues are executed. You said it yourself on the ridge."

"My law says rogues are executed by the Alpha or by his second. It says nothing about a woman who has not been tried, and nothing at all about a sick boy." His grip loosened but he did not let go. "I will bring you before my father as a supplicant asking for hospitality under the old law. The Cairn Pack has kept that law for two hundred years, and he has never once refused a supplicant."

I laughed, and it came out ugly. "You think he will welcome me?"

"I think he will hear you. That is all I am promising."

Behind us, Ronan coughed, a wet sound that ended in a gasp, and I turned away from Finn and went back inside. My brother's face was grey, and when I put my hand to his forehead it was hot enough to make me curse under my breath.

"Fine," I said. "But if your father orders me killed, I am taking at least two of your warriors with me."

"That is fair."

I looked up, and he was almost smiling. Almost.

The pack house sat above the loch, a long building of grey stone with smoke coming from two chimneys. Finn carried Ronan up the slope himself, refusing my help, and I walked beside him counting the windows. Six on the lower floor. Four on the upper. Two doors at the front and one at the side.

The yard was full of people. I counted eleven, and every one of them turned to look at us when the gate opened.

Then the door of the pack house opened, and a man came out, and the yard went quiet.

He was older, broad through the chest and grey at the temples, with hair that had once been the same pale gold as Finn's and lines around his mouth that looked carved rather than worn. His eyes were brown, and they went from Finn to Ronan to me in the space of a heartbeat.

"Finn," he said. His voice was calm, the calm of a man who had learned long ago that shouting got him nothing. "What have you brought to my door?"

"Supplicants, Father." Finn set Ronan down on the bench by the door. "A woman and her brother, asking for hospitality under the old law."

The Alpha came down the steps. He was in his shirtsleeves, and there was flour on his hands, and that small detail undid me more than any show of power could have. He had been baking when the howls came.

"Supplicants," he repeated. "You found a rogue on the border with her brother and you brought her to my hall."

"Yes."

"Did you think to ask her what she did to earn the rope?"

"She has done nothing that I know of." Finn's voice did not waver. "She came to us hurt, with a wounded child, and she asked for one night. Any wolf who comes to the stones with empty hands and a request is owed bread and a hearing before judgment."

The Alpha looked at me then. His eyes moved over the blood on my sleeve and the state of my boots and the way I stood with my weight on the balls of my feet, ready to move, and I knew he was reading me the way a shepherd reads weather.

"What is your name?"

"Elara."

"Elara of what pack?"

I said nothing, and the silence went on long enough that the yard began to stir.

"Father," Finn said. "The boy will die if he is not seen by a healer tonight. Whatever else we decide, let Maeve look at him first."

The Alpha studied his son for a long moment. Then he turned his head and called back toward the house. "Maeve! Get out here!"

A woman came down the steps, small and bent and older than anyone in the yard, with a knitted shawl and grey hair braided down her back. She went to Ronan and put two fingers under his jaw.

"Fever's high. First shift, is it?" She looked at me. "Late bloomer?"

"Yes."

"Then he needs to be inside by a fire." She looked up at the Alpha. "He comes inside, Angus. I will not have a child die on the doorstep while we argue about laws."

Angus exhaled slowly. "He comes inside. She waits in the yard until I have decided what to do with her."

That was when I saw her.

She was standing by the woodpile with her arms folded, quiet as a shadow. Champagne blonde hair in soft layers falling past her shoulders, sea green eyes that caught the torchlight, and a crooked half-smile that did not reach them. The Beta, I guessed, from the way the other wolves kept glancing at her for direction.

"Father," she said, and her voice was warm and easy. "The boy is clearly no threat. The woman, though. She has been standing in your yard for two minutes and she has not once stopped looking at the gate."

"Thank you, Isla," Angus said. "I had noticed."

Isla's crooked smile turned on me. "She is a pretty thing. Pale hair and those blue eyes. I wonder if it was her face that made Finn decide not to use the knife."

The yard went very still.

"I used no knife," Finn said evenly, "because the law did not require one."

"Of course." Isla unfolded her arms and walked toward us, and I saw her look at him properly, at his face, at the way he stood. Her expression did not change, but something behind her eyes narrowed. "You smell of the bothy. The one on the south slope. How long were you out there with her before you brought her in?"

Finn did not answer.

And Isla laughed, a light, careless sound that made my skin crawl. "The old law says we owe a supplicant bread and a hearing. It says nothing about her leaving this yard afterward. I will make sure the hall is ready, Angus."

She turned away, and I watched her go, and my wolf watched with me. That woman knew exactly what she had just seen, and she would use it.

"Elara." Angus stepped forward, and his voice was low enough that only I could hear it. "You will tell me the truth before the night is over. All of it. Because whatever my son thinks he has saved tonight, I have seen what a rogue can bring to a pack, and I will not let it happen to mine."

Then he turned and went into the hall, and Finn came to stand beside me.

"He knows something," I said. "About me. Or about the ones chasing me."

Finn looked down at me, and in the torchlight his gold-brown eyes were steady. "My father knows many things he does not say. He has been like this since the winter my mother died." He paused. "He will not kill you in the hall, but he will test you, and if you fail, no law on earth will save you."

"And if I pass?"

"Then we will have a different problem." He turned toward the door. "Isla is already telling the pack that I did not draw my blade. By morning, they will all want to know why."

I followed him in, and my wolf followed me, and I counted the exits as I crossed the threshold.