Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,43

at him from the door of the old shepherd’s hut—four walls and a roof to keep out the storm if they were stuck up there overnight—and tossed the duffel bag she’d carried up the hill. He fumbled it out of the air before it hit him in the face, and he grumbled under his breath in irritation. It looked like he wasn’t the only one to fall into old habits. Random objects thrown at his face had always been one of her tricks to make sure he was paying attention, hadn’t dropped his guard.

Wolves can afford trust. You can’t.

“Mind your tongue,” Kath warned him bluntly as he dropped the duffel to dangle from his hand. “You’re home now. No one here cares that you’ve got a bank account or that you’re a teacher.”

“Professor,” he corrected her stiffly.

The ridiculousness of that occurred to him the minute the words left his tongue. Even if he could convince Kath the difference mattered, and he couldn’t, that was all gone now. All those years he’d spent away—his almost perfect human act, the office that smelled of him and books, the comfortable life he’d made—felt like a pit stop. The first of the Wolf Winter’s snow had only fallen a few months ago, but he’d already let go of the fantasy that he’d ever go back.

Even if there was anything to go back to—one day—Jack had ruined it. He’d been there, in Danny’s bed and in his life, and now he wouldn’t be. Danny didn’t know how he’d live with that.

He dragged his hand down his face and sighed. “I don’t suppose I’m either now.”

Kath snorted at him. “It was what you did. That doesn’t change who you are,” she said as she stepped inside and dragged the door shut behind her. The wind rattled at it like it resented being closed out, and she had to latch it with the loop of rope nailed to the jam. “As for the Numitor’s boys, I tried to warn them, but I was too late. Lachlan already knew they were coming somehow—”

“You knew I was here,” Danny pointed out as he sat down on the edge of the narrow metal cot, the smell of mildew worked down into the stuffing of the bedroll he’d found propped up in the corner. “Why wouldn’t Lach?”

Kath huffed and shook her head. “Dog or not,” she said, “I carried you, I birthed you. You think you could come back to Lochwinnoch and I wouldn’t catch your scent in the Wild? Besides, once the snows came, I knew to look out for you. Whatever you pretended to be down over the Wall, we’re your blood. Your family. Where else would you go?”

Guilt cut through Danny’s anger and made him look down. He focused on his fingers as he wrenched the buckles of the duffel loose. It had been his once, the stitches still strained where he’d stuffed it with books and errands, but the canvas had gotten discolored and stiff with disuse since he left.

There was an old glasses case on top, patched together with duct tape where he’d broken it. The glasses inside had heavy, battered rims, and the prescription was a few years out of date, but they’d do. Danny unfolded the legs and put them on. The world came back into focus and didn’t make him feel any better about himself.

If Jack hadn’t come to find him and brought the prophets on his tail, Danny would never have come back here. The idea that he might need to check on Bron and Mam had never occurred to him. He’d have stayed with Jenny and the others, kept his mouth shut and his head down. Maybe he’d have gotten back together with Jenny, because he was still a dog and he wanted a pack.

What good would he have done back here? They were wolves, and this was their winter. All he could do was remind people their bloodline had thrown a dog.

Kath had always thought she knew him better than she did, though.

“However he knew, he knew. You should have—I should have done something,” he said.

“What? Die?” Kath asked. She leaned over and rapped her knuckles on the top of his head. “I told you when you were a little boy that if you read too much you’d get stupid. Squeeze too many other people’s words in there and where is there for your wits to live?”

Danny leaned his head to the side out from under her hand. “I could