Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,90

the bone, but it should have been raw meat and pus still.

“A bird did that,” he said. “A raven the size of an eagle.”

Boyd coughed out a nervous laugh and reached up to touch the same spot Gregor had. He touched his hairline with gloved fingers and grimaced as the seams scraped the half-healed spot. “Size of a fucking Labrador. I swear—” He stopped abruptly, and his eyes shifted back to Gregor, a quick check that went from his shoulders to the wolf-coarse tangle of his hair. “You. Was that you there, with the bird and the dark-haired man?”

“I’m with the bird, my brother was with the dog.”

“I didn’t see a dog.”

“You just said you did.”

Boyd rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and let it drop. “The woman. Who is she? Why is she there?”

He leaned forward, his body tense as he focused on the answers. Apparently, he’d misjudged his role. Gregor braced his hand against the man’s chest and shoved him back against the tree with a thump.

“I ask. You answer,” he said.

Boyd exhaled, the moisture from his breath frozen into the stubble of his beard. “I don’t have any answers,” he said. “You’re right. None of this—fuck it’s cold—none of this is how it should be. Okay? The fucking weather. The fact we got here… and nobody is here. Nobody that’s meant to be. And everyone’s… they’re not right. And it’s so damn cold. It’s so cold, and I’ve been cold places. Not like this. Even when I dream, it’s cold.”

“I don’t care.”

Boyd fumbled his jacket open, the raw rip of Velcro surprisingly loud over the wind, and reached in to pull out a flask wrapped in the same camouflage print as his uniform. Glove-clumsy fingers popped the cap off, and he lifted it to his lips.

“I’m not right,” he said. “Should have told you to fuck off. Should have let you kill me. But—”

Gregor slapped the flask out of his hand. The bottle flew through the air and bounced off a tree. Green-tinted amber liquid ran down the bark of the tree and puddled on the snow. Boyd howled in furious loss and elbowed Gregor out of the way as he lunged after the flask. He scrambled over the ground on his hands and knees in a desperate bid to save something.

The liquor had soaked into the snow. Boyd scraped up chunks of frost with both hands and shoved them into his mouth to chew at the ice. He sucked at his gloved fingers where the cloth had stained.

Gregor grabbed the back of Boyd’s collar and dragged him away from the mess. It went against his nature to save someone from their own weakness, but Boyd was only useful because he hadn’t drunk as much of the liquor as the others. Or it hadn’t had enough time to work on him yet, at least. Nick thought that, with time, the prophets’ converts would recover, whatever the liquor burned out would regrow, but he wanted to believe that. Gregor wasn’t so sure.

The soul didn’t heal, or at least not well. The scabbed-over hollow that Rose had left in Gregor when she cut the wolf out of him was evidence of that.

For now, Boyd was reasonable enough to talk, and Gregor wanted to keep him that way. He shoved him back against the tree, and it shed snow and chunks of ice around them.

“That stuff isn’t good for you,” he said. Curiosity prickled, and he paused long enough to ask, “Haven’t you noticed?”

Boyd sucked the frost off his lips. “It’s medicine,” he said, a slice of something blank in his eyes. “Doctor Ewan gave it to us. He said it’s like quinine… or something… it works on the blood. It helps with the cold.”

“The doctor,” Gregor interrupted. Ewan was the ginger prophet’s name, the one that had no stolen skin and carried on Rose’s work out in the world. Nick’s grandfather. “This Ewan, he’s the one who talks to the old woman?”

“She’s so beautiful,” Boyd said, horror in his voice. “All raw meat and blisters, but I want her. I don’t even know why she’s there. It was meant to be—I don’t know—politicians. Scientists. People who get to put the world back together. And us. To keep them safe.”

“Guard dogs,” Gregor said with contempt. Even before Rose put her rotten teeth to them, they were trained to come to heel. And kill. “What is she to the doctor?”

Boyd impatiently tossed his head back. It cracked against