shielder is a protector, the lowest degree of wolf pairing. From the Old Tongue. In the youngest Pack, shielders protect one another from being eaten by coyotes.
seax: The dagger worn by all full-fledged adult Pack when at Homelands.
Slitung: Flesh tearing. The ultimate punishment. Every wolf participates so that the whole Pack bears responsibility for the life they have failed.
Shifter: Shifters are not bound by the Iron Moon, and since humans are dominant, Shifters see no advantage in turning into something as vulnerable as a wolf. Unfortunately, they have adopted many of humans’ less-desirable traits, while retaining the strength and stronger senses of a wolf-changer—the worst of both worlds for Pack. In the Old Tongue, they are called Hwerflic, meaning changeable, shifty.
Wearg: Among Pack, it means outlaw, bloodthirsty. Among humans, it means outlaw or monster and derives from the word for wolf.
westend: Waster, destroyer. Old Tongue for human.
Wulfbyrgenna: The wolf tombs. It is what the Pack calls the coyotes who eat their remains.
Year of First Shoes: This is the first year that pups start changing into skin and, as the name implies, the year they start wearing shoes and clothes. It marks their transition from pups to juveniles.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Maria Vale’s The Last Wolf
Prologue
Titnore Woods, 1668
This would be Ælfrida’s fourth and last attempt. The Pack at Essex had refused, as had Anglia. Even the tiny remnants of the Pack at Gyrwe had sent her away empty-handed. Now staring at the strong and plentiful wolves of Wessex, her heart sank. She’d even caught sight of a pup staring at her from under a dead oak, the first she’d seen in England in over a decade.
Her own Mercia Pack hadn’t had a pup since Halwende, and he was almost an adult. As she waited to be announced, subordinate wolves circled Mercia’s Alpha, sniffing her curiously and gathering her scent to take back to the dominants. Others, still in skin, watched from a distance.
“Ælfrida, Alpha of Mercia. Wessex þu wilcumaþ swa beódgæst.”
Ælfrida, Alpha of Mercia. Wessex welcomes you as table guest.
She’d made sure her wolves had learned the English of humans years ago. It was ridiculous to pretend that the Packs were still the top predators. That title belonged to humans now, and Ælfrida studied them as carefully as deer studied her.
“Greetings, Wulfric, Alpha of Wessex, and many thanks for your hospitality.”
“Sprecest þu ne Englisc?” the huge man growled, though that was one of the ambiguities of the Old Tongue: it sounded growled, whether one meant it to or not.
“This is English, Wessex.” She brushed her hand against her breeches, feeling scaly bits of fur there. “Is Seolfer here?”
“Seolfer? Min nidling?”
“Yes, your nidling.” She was distracted momentarily by the scabrous clumps in her hands. Sniffing her palms to be sure, she wiped them against a tree trunk. These wolves might look well fed, but some, at least, had mange. Maybe all was not well in Wessex. Maybe Wulfric would listen to her.
For now, though, the old Alpha scowled.
“Ic þearf wealhstod,” she said, even though she actually didn’t need a translator. Ælfrida was an Alpha who issued commands and was obeyed. This bluntness had not served her well when dealing with the other Alphas, and Ælfrida hoped that Seolfer would know how to translate that bluntness into something the conceited oaf Wulfric might find more acceptable. Besides, she liked the young woman and had looked forward to seeing her again.
“Seolfer!” Wulfric yelled without bothering to look.
The woman who emerged from behind Wulfric’s lodge had dark-blond hair, typical of silvers when they were in skin. A runt, she was destined to life as a nidling, a bond servant to her Alpha pair.
Many moons ago, looking for something more than a life of endless submission, Seolfer had made a desperate run all the way to Pack Caledonia. Unfortunately, wolves tolerate neither weakness nor strangers, especially not with resources so strained. Caledonia, Essex, Northumbria, Strathclyde: all of them had sent her away with nothing but a bite to her pastern.
Then she arrived at the Forest of Dean and planted her short legs and shook her shredded hide and challenged the famously fierce and powerful Alpha of Mercia for a place in the Pack. Ælfrida took one look at the runt and laughed. Then took her in. Not because she had any room for weakness, but because she saw in Seolfer a kind of strength that Packs almost never had: the courage to face the unknown.
The runt was, as wolves say, strong of marrow.
Unfortunately, the