Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,41
exhaling. For the first time, he felt what Hector had meant about it being “sour.” It was there, but when he reached for it, all he got was a slime of grease and reluctance. For the first time in his life, the Wild didn’t want anything to do with him.
The prophet must have read that realization in Jack’s face, because he smirked wide enough to show the withered gap in his gums where his eye teeth had been bedded. Jack let the Wild squirm away from his touch. He could destroy the prophets without it—or at least, he conceded to the skeptical undercurrent that welled up, hurt them—but let them think the Wild had rejected him thoroughly.
“When I kill you, any bastards you had before Da cut your balls off will dance in the streets,” Jack said. The prophet behind him yanked on his collar, and he staggered before he caught himself. He braced his feet and looked around at the Pack. Da’s best and Lach’s dregs weren’t going to shift yet, but there were wolves between those two poles. The prophets might have dismissed them, but even a middling wolf in the Scottish Pack was better than most. “Is this the fucking Winter we’ve been promised? On our knees to the prophets? Harnessed like sled dogs so they can keep pace with Fenrir?”
People listened. No one thought kindly of the boot on their neck, never mind a wolf. The ginger prophet scowled as he caught the taste of resentment on the air, and he gestured sharply to the man with Jack’s collar. “Shut him up,” Ginger ordered. “And hobble them both. Bring the dogs.”
The other prophets dragged the dogs up from the cage, chains wrapped around rot-rashed hands. Protests and questions were silenced with backhands and kicks. Even Tom’s attempts to testify to his faith were smacked out of him. He went on his knees with the rest.
The strange dog—Heath, Jack reminded himself, from Stirling—just kept his head down and did as he was told. He only glanced up once, to fire a bitter glance toward Lach.
“I’m coming as well,” Lach blurted as he stepped forward. He hunched his shoulders like a whipped cur when the prophet growled at him, but he stood his ground. He scratched at the side of his face, where the skin was already raw and welted from being worried at. “I want to speak to her. I want to hear her tell what it will be like when they come back. For us. For me, for the Numitor. I need to hear her say it.”
Ginger looked at him with contempt but gave in with a curl of his lip.
“Fine,” he said dismissively. “You can walk the dogs.”
Behind him Ellie stepped forward. She looked like Kath, if she’d been left to fade in the sun. The same haircut, the same loose dress that most of the female wolves wore, and an attempt at the same confidence. It was all a little too blurred around the edges to convince.
“I’ll go as well,” she said. When both men glared at her, she ducked her chin quickly. Her hands were twisted in her dress, bony knuckles almost lost in the folds. “You’re the Numitor, Lachlan, you need an honor guard. Even when you go to pay your respects to the gods. After last night… I need to prove myself again. Let me?”
It took a second as Lachlan was torn between paranoia and pride. It was Ginger who decided in the end.
“Let her tag along if that’s what she wants,” he said. “If she isn’t happy to see you, maybe your guard will have the honor of being the next Numitor. And the rest of you… we only took some of the children last time. Don’t think you could stop us, or hide, if we wanted to take the rest.”
He turned and limped away, clumsy in the snow and his heavy, winter-weather garb.
“Like dogs,” Jack said as the prophet behind him dragged at the collar. “When they whelp an unwanted litter, the owner just drowns them. Nothing they can do to stop it.”
The prophet punched him in the kidneys until he gave in and let them drag him away. He locked eyes with Kath as he went, a quietly grim threat that was only for her. Jack didn’t blame her for what she’d done to him or that she’d shown belly to the prophets. But if she’d traded her son for her daughter, that he wouldn’t forgive.