and cupped his hand around Jack’s hip, fingers callused and familiar.
It was easy. He was Jack’s.
“I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known you’d get hurt,” Danny said. “Mam said it was bad, but you and Gregor are the Old Man’s sons, and—”
He was cold, shivering as he thought too much about the wind that nipped at his skin. Jack wasn’t sure if the body pressed against him was there to hold him or steal his heat. He didn’t mind either way.
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to,” Jack said.
They limped back into the aftermath of the fight. The fire had finally given in to the inevitable and guttered—just embers and black smoke as the storm dumped snow down on it. The bodies of the prophets who hadn’t escaped lay where they’d fallen. Snow already covered their bodies in a white blanket, stained with faded pink as it soaked up the spilled blood.
Ellie was on her knees in the middle of the wolves, the back of her neck scruffed unkindly in Kath’s thin, bony hand. One of the dogs—the stranger—was yelling a protest, but the dogs’ help in the fight had already been forgotten. The wolves snarled and cuffed him, eager to get him to shut up or go away. On the outskirts, the rest of Lachlan’s wolves watched sullenly.
Shit.
He pulled himself away from Danny and squared his shoulders as he stalked across the bloodstained snow and dirt.
“Let her go,” he said.
Kath tightened her grip instead. “She’s the prophets’ lapdog.”
Ellie writhed in the painful grip on her neck. “Fuck you,” she spat. “Lach was Numitor.”
“I’d sooner have a goat,” Bron said with a contemptuous curl of her lip. “What sort of wolf would follow the likes of Lach?”
“Everyone did,” Jack said, his voice harsh. “Kath. Connor. Tom the dog. Maybe for different reasons, but the prophets had you all on a string. If you want her to pay for that, you’ll be accountable too. Let her go.”
Kath studied him with hooded, dark eyes. Then she glanced past him to where he’d let Danny fall back.
“You the Numitor now?” she asked dryly. “Here to give us all orders?”
Kath had always believed that it was best to rip the plaster straight off. The pain would have to be faced eventually, so why not make it clean? It was a wolf way to be, but Jack had spent too much time with prophets and humans over the last few months.
“I’m the Numitor’s son,” he said. “And if he contradicts me, then do what you want. Until then, let her go.”
She did. Ellie rubbed the back of her neck and gave him a grateful, thoughtful nod.
Jack felt the Pack settle in around him, the structure of it clear as glass as he was folded back into the hierarchy. Just like that.
“What now, then?” Hector asked from the back. He didn’t mean immediately, but Jack decided to take it that way.
“We go back to the Old Man’s,” he said. “And work out what to do next. This isn’t over, and I am done with being prey.”
Someone howled, sharp muzzle thrown up to the sky in defiance, and a low mutter of agreement rolled through the Pack. It felt good for a moment, heady as a draft of the prophets’ poison drink.
Then he looked over at Danny—always the last person he looked for at the end of a fight—and Danny dropped his gaze in polite submission. Jack’s stomach sank with it, because he supposed he’d made that decision.
Jack was the Old Man’s son, and the only thing he’d ever wanted was to take Da’s place one day. He’d been willing to kill his brother for it, because he knew he’d be the chosen one. Everyone had.
It didn’t matter that he’d changed his mind. Who else was going to step up and lead the Pack through the Winter?
Jack let himself look at Danny for a second longer and then turned his attention back to his wolves.
“We have until the next full moon,” he said. Then he nodded to Bron. She instinctively curled her arms around her stomach and scowled at him. “And we have what the prophets want.”
Or at least what one mad old wolf wanted. They just didn’t know why.
Chapter Fourteen—Jack
THE SHOCK of snow-melt water against his skin made Jack’s balls tighten between his legs and his toes curl. Wolves might not let the cold bother them, but that didn’t make it pleasant. It was still better than the stink of smoke and the