Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,54

looked up. The ruins of an old manor house, stitched together by scaffolding and ice, sulked in front of him. There was a sense of something unfulfilled about it, like it was the architectural equivalent of a miscarriage.

Something had also slaughtered a sheep in front of it. Half of the gray, matted corpse of a black-legged Highland sheep was impaled on the fence, its head dangling back to stare with bulging black eyes at the new arrivals. The other half had been ripped free and been dragged over the ground in front of the house. Entrails lay in long, purple streamers, blood had soaked into the snow and frozen in fat, red targets, and the bones had been torn apart and dragged away to gnaw on.

The stink of dead sheep and offal hung in the air. Gregor resisted the urge to turn and look at Hector, as though the dog might recognize one of his flock like this.

“What the fuck?” the ginger prophet blurted as he took the scene in. “How the hell did that sheep get up there? Look at the mess.”

He sounded exasperated, like a Lochwinnoch housewife who’d just had mud tracked on her clean floors. It was Jack who laughed first, a snort of amusement, and then it spread even to the dogs, who tittered and then cringed as the prophets beat them with the ends of their chains.

Ginger flushed angrily all the way to his scalp, bright through his faded hair, and yanked on Jack’s collar to shut him up.

“Maybe we should get you to clean it up,” he spat. “The Numitor’s sons can finally do something useful.”

Rose turned her head as if she could still, somehow, see the mess. The monster under her hand turned its head at the same time, as much as it could around the exaggerated bulge of muscle under its jaw.

“There are things in the Wild that have fasted for a long time, Ewan,” she said, an edge of mockery to her voice. “Now they are free, we should begrudge them mutton? Soon enough we’ll be gods, and this old place will have outlived its usefulness to us anyhow. Let the sheep rot.”

She absently touched the ruin of her face as she spoke and picked with her nails at the stiff, dry edges of the stitches.

“It’ll stink,” Ginger Ewan protested.

Rose turned her shoulder toward him. Her matted, stolen hair blew back from her face, revealing the nub of her ear. The edge of mockery had sharpened in her face as she waved her hand in an expansive, encompassing gesture.

“It’s winter, Ewan,” she said with withering contempt. “It will freeze.”

She took a step toward the house, stumbled, and had to catch herself with an arm across the monster’s back. One hand lifted to check her face again, and the skin pleated between her fingers as she pressed it back down against the raw edges of her face.

“You need to go,” Ewan said. He didn’t hide the satisfaction in his voice.

She pushed herself back up straight on the monster’s back. Pus dripped down her wrist in a thick gray trickle.

“Get on with our preparations. I don’t want to have to wait until the New Year to get this done,” she ordered sharply. The pus dripped onto the snow, and the monster lapped it up. Rose kicked it away with a hiss of disapproval. It withdrew, and she shot her hand out to grab Ewan’s wrist and dig her fingers in. “And find Nick. Do one thing right and I’ll be pleased. Get both right and I’ll be amazed.”

She threw his arm back at him like it offended her and stepped—no, Gregor corrected himself—was taken back by the Wild. Lachlan made an inchoate sound of protest before he managed to choke it off.

“Burns heal badly,” Gregor said. “But they heal. The old bitch looks as raw as when I tossed the oil on her.”

With the side of his boot, Ewan scuffed snow over the pus stain. “And she has neither forgiven nor forgotten that,” he said.

“Didn’t want her to,” Gregor said bluntly.

Ewan snorted, half amused. “Aye, well,” he said. “Piss off the Wild and you won’t heal at all. What she’s done—”

“You talk too much!” one of the other prophets interjected. “If the wolves know all our secrets, what use are we to them?”

“If her plan works, what use are they to us?” Ewan countered. He didn’t sound excited at the idea, just grim. When the other prophet spluttered out a half-formed protest, Ewan