Chapter 16
Tuesday didn’t know why Knife was undressing, but he’d been anxious all morning, and his grandfather’s permission had erased all of it with overwhelming relief.
She’d wanted to ask him why he was stressed, but there was no way to do so without his grandfather hearing, so she’d had to just scent it without being able to help.
And then his clothes were gone, and he burst into the largest wolf she’d ever seen.
So big, she had to plant her feet to keep from stepping back. It took every ounce of hard-headed willpower she could muster to stand her ground because nothing had prepared her for the scale of him.
Boone’s wolf was huge because he’s a large man, and wolves keep the same mass between human and animal.
But Knife’s wolf was easily more than four hundred pounds of creamy white, super-dense fur, and he dwarfed every wolf she’d ever stood next to.
And he was built differently. A gray wolf is all sinewy angles, built for running and leaping as well as attacking.
But this wolf was stockier, denser. The difference between a sprinter and a lineman.
He must have scented her spike of reaction, because he laid down immediately, put his head on his paws, and looked up at her.
“I know you won’t hurt me,” she told him. “I was just — damn, you’re big.” She steadied herself. “You can come to me. I’m good.”
He stood and leaped to her in one motion, testing her words to see if they were true. He landed with his snout a quarter inch from her chin, looking her eye-to-eye with all four paws on the ground.
She brought both hands up and sank them into the fur at his neck — dense and deep, built for something colder than Tennessee summers — and ran her palms down the massive column of it.
“We are dire wolves,” Grandfather said, standing off to her left.
She kept her hands in Knife’s fur and let that sink in. Natural dragons are extinct, but the shifters are not. It made sense the same applied to other species, and why it was such a huge secret.
Inside her, Tuesday’s wolf stood at full attention, admiring their mate smugly with an I-told-you-so attitude that made Tuesday smile.
Suddenly, everything made sense. He’d told her he had a big secret back on their first or second date, but her wolf had always known he wasn’t a normal wolf. The human had been clueless, but the wolf had wanted to submit to him from the very beginning.
“My wolf knew,” she told Knife’s wolf. “She’s always caused me problems, not wanting to submit to other wolves I was… involved with, but she was ready to roll over for you even before I was.” She scratched behind his ear. “Smug bitch is inside me with a great big I-told-you-so attitude.”
He chuffed and gently headbutted her, and she kissed the top of his enormous head.
“I’m not pissed. It’s a big secret, and you needed permission. I get it.”
He took a step back, changed back to human, and accepted a bag of venison jerky from his grandfather with a nod. He popped a piece in his mouth and chewed while he stepped into his jeans.
“Thank you, Grandfather.” Knife looked at the old man with something that went deeper than gratitude. “She’s my world, and she needed to know.”
His grandfather turned to her with a nod. “This falls under a ‘not your secret to tell’ edict. Should you tell someone, you’ll be subject to the new Senatus’s penalties.” He held her gaze, and she nodded. Penalties are usually death or permanent slavery. Harsh, but necessary.
He smiled, and his entire carriage changed.
His body language friendly instead of authoritative.
“With that out of the way, you are invited to run with our pack tonight for the full moon. Knife and I will stay close to you, to make sure the rest of the pack doesn’t trouble your smaller wolf.
I will be clear you are a guest with safe passage. ”
She thought about running under a full moon on this mountain, surrounded by dire wolves, and only felt joy and excitement. No fear.
“Thank you,” she told him. “For trusting me with your secret, and for welcoming me into the family.”
“Knife will always be family, even if he is no longer pack. If he chooses to return to our pack, you can oath in as well, as his mate.”
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday stripped at the tree line with the rest of the pack, clothes folded into little cubbies all packs seem to keep near their ceremonial grounds.
Her grandmother had once pointed out she’d never run with him on the full moon. Her grandmother wasn’t often wrong, and Tuesday would forever be grateful she hadn’t been right about this.
As soon as her clothes were in a cubby, Tuesday took a deep breath and let her wolf surface, releasing the fist she held over the other being, her twin soul, and let her be the dominant psyche for a little while.
The sensory world exploded around her, the wolf’s nose and eyes seeing things the human form couldn’t.
The forest came to life, and she could scent every squirrel and bird. Every groundhog and raccoon.
The moon hung over a nearby mountain in all its silver glory, and she felt it in her bones. In her blood.
And then Knife’s wolf was beside her, dwarfing her, and her wolf chuffed at him in welcome, thrilled to the bone to finally see him in person.
He looked even more beautiful at night, his white fur silvering in the moonlight. She stood admiring him, but he merely bumped her shoulder with his and then ran.
She was smaller, able to run between trees and alter her course easier, where he just barreled through the lush undergrowth.
They ran as a pack, but Knife stayed with her, Grandfather just ahead of them, everyone else around and behind them, scattered through the forest while running as a unit.
The mountain was alive under the full moon, the smells of it coming in waves: wet stone, old timber, the green rot of the forest floor, the fading, terrified scent of small animals scattering from their path.
They ran up and around the mountain without reaching the top, headed down the other side, and altered their pace. She scented deer and focused on staying in sync with the pack.
This wasn’t her pack, but she’d been welcomed, and now she was running under the full moon with Knife’s wolf close enough to touch — and her wolf exulted in the magnificence of it.
The pack worked the herd and brought down two deer. Knife made a space for her to eat from one of them beside him, growled at someone who got aggressive with her, and the other wolf went to the other deer.
Later, while the wolves cleaned themselves and each other, Knife lifted his head, sniffed, and took off.
Tuesday’s wolf took chase, and scented what he was after — a sweet-smelling bunny that promised to be succulent and juicy.
She watched him pounce, heard the brief scream before he killed it, and then tilted her head when he brought it to her, gently placed it under her head, took a few steps back, and laid down.
It touched the wolf. A gift.
She tore into it, ate a few bites, and then lifted it, took it to Knife, tore a bite off, and settled it on his paws.
The two ate the bunny together, and then Knife licked her snout. Cleaning it for her. She did the same for him, and then looked up to see another wolf nearing. His mother.
She stopped, looked at them, then looked back in the direction of the other wolves.
The three went back together, and Grandfather led them to a cavern high on the mountain, with a wide mouth that opened onto a view of the valley below, dark under the moon. The pack settled, and she found a spot against Knife’s wolf, enormous and solid at her back, his breathing slow and deep.
She closed her eyes, tucked herself closer against his side, let the mountain breathe around them, and slept.
Morning came gray and cool, and the wolves made their way back to the community’s meeting grounds, changed and dressed, and then commenced with breakfast.
The Chattanooga pack has a lot of wolves mated to humans, who get breakfast started the next morning so it’s well on the way when the wolves return.
This pack was all wolves, though. No humans.
It meant they had to start from scratch, but all the prep work had clearly been done.
People pulled biscuit dough out of a large refrigerator and rapidly got to work folding and cutting.
Meanwhile, bacon and sausage were frying on a large outdoor griddle, steaks were placed on a grill, and huge bowls of already broken eggs were pulled from the fridge and cooked in large pans.
The outdoor kitchen was a thing of beauty, under a roof, propane burners in a line for people to cook side-by-side.
But Knife pulled her to the side to sit at a long table with his parents, siblings, and grandparents, explaining, “It’s a team, and everyone has a job.
This isn’t an everyone-chips-in kind of thing.
We rotate the kitchen team every year. If you haven’t served by the time you’re twenty-five, that’s when you do.
A lot of people serve multiple times. People who can’t cook end up doing clean-up duty on their year. ”
Kids not old enough to change yet came from the cabins, and it was clear the older kids were in charge of the younger kids. Knife’s nieces and nephews sat with them, and it was so homey, so much like the mornings at Randall’s house, then Kenny’s, it made her heart hurt a little.
She hadn’t run with his club brothers yet. Maybe she’d get the same thing with them the following morning.
She hoped so.
But she looked around and breathed in the beauty of this mountain, and forked a large venison sausage from the plate someone set down in the center of the table.
This was a good morning, and she chose to enjoy it rather than grieve what she’d lost.
Knife’s mother grabbed two biscuits as soon as someone put a platter down, and told Knife, “Your grandfather does not get to keep you the entire time. You’re sleeping at our house tonight.”
Knife grinned and scooped some eggs onto Tuesday’s plate, then his own. “Of course we are, Mom. Grandfather needed time with Tuesday, but that’s settled now.”