Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,33

on the back of his tongue, and filled his hand with the blind, unthinking terror of his dreams. It even infected the bird, cold and insidious as it spilled over the graft that joined them. It filled his head with the batter of frantic wings and angry knock-sharp caws.

The man prowled forward, still on all fours as though he’d forgotten how to walk, and that low, dangerous growl dribbled out of his slack mouth along with his spit. There was something there that Nick needed to see, he could feel it, but there was no room for it in the panic-static that filled his brain.

There was only one thing to do when you saw the Run-Away Man, only one answer that Gran had wanted to hear.

Nick spun on his heel and fled, full of black, winged panic and his throat so tight he could hardly breathe. He tripped over a stone and went down, sliced his hands and knees up as he fell, and scrambled to his feet as a hand grabbed at the tails of his loaned coat. The Run-Away Man yanked him back for a moment, and then the fabric tore like tissue between coarse fingers. Nick staggered, caught himself, and fled between the towers and into the storm. He didn’t question how he—barefoot and breathless and lost—stayed ahead of the man behind him or where his blind flight would take him.

He ran away.

Chapter Seven—Jack

THERE WAS coffee, two thermoses of it and an extra cup to share. Jack thought of Danny, his knee tucked between Jack’s thighs and his nose cold where it pressed into the hollow of Jack’s shoulder. Dogs weren’t as immune to weather as wolves were. They felt it more. He supposed no one wanted the dogs—six of them, all chained to fresh, shiny loops sunk into the walls, some of whom Jack didn’t know—to freeze to death down here before… whatever this was.

“Here,” Millie Dance said, her voice scratched and raw as she thrust a cup out toward him. Her hand shook slightly as she held it, and the coffee spilled over the chipped rim to redden her chill-white knuckles. She ran the corner shop and post office in Lochwinnoch, with a brisk trade in Irn-Bru and gossip for the Old Man. It was a good life for a dog, and she had gotten used to playing human. Jack had never seen her without makeup and a sensible heel, never mind in a tattered dressing gown with blood matted in her hair. “Even a wolf would rather be—”

One of the other dogs—Hector Bates, a dour farmhand who’d been lying to local farmers about who ate their sheep for twenty years—backhanded the cup out of Millie’s hand. It hit the dirt floor with a thud. Coffee spilled out to steam against the cold earth and rolled until Gregor put his foot out to stop it.

“Let ’em parch,” he snapped, his shoulders hunched, and chapped lips lifted back from nicotine-yellow teeth as he glared at Jack. “We don’t owe them anything. For centuries we’ve groveled for them, done their dirty deeds for them, and now they don’t even have the fucking decency to put us down with dignity? You want to wag your tail for a pat on the head, Millie, that’s on you. I’m done showing my throat.”

Gregor laughed harshly and bent down to pick up the cup.

“Are we keeping you from your sheep?” Gregor mocked as he wiped the cup on his jeans. There was never a bad situation he couldn’t make worse with his mouth, even when his fingers were wet with blood from the injury on his shoulder that wouldn’t heal. “Scared they’ll tup some strange ram while you’re not there to watch?”

Hector lunged at Gregor and jerked to a stop at the end of his chain. The metal collar cut into the weathered slack of his throat and made him gag. Millie pulled him away by the back of his shirt.

“I’ll do as I fucking please,” she snarled at him as she shoved him against the curved wall. The old, shaped stones were limned with ice, thick glazed over the mortar and granite. She jammed her forearm up under Hector’s chin, above the collar. “Give what I want, to whom I want. You’re just another dog, Hector. Don’t try and show your fangs to me.”

Jack grabbed her shoulders, all wiry muscle under the greasy felt of her robe, and pulled her off the other dog. He didn’t get any thanks from