With a subdued bark and a whimper, the other little wolf calls for my attention too. I bend over, picking Adam up, checking his leg, and letting him bury his muzzle next to mine.
When I turn around, every place at every table has a chair, except for spaces that the Shifter is in the process of filling with the two metal chairs stenciled with UUFP on the back, a constant reminder that while these chairs might have been sufficient for Unitarian Universalists in Plattsburgh, they are not sufficient for wolves.
“Alpha?” Leonora’s voice echoes from the top of the basement stairs.
I search through my memory, trying to remember why my human behaviors teacher is wearing a long, red gown spangled with glitter like a crow’s wet dream.
Then four juveniles reach the top of the stairs behind her, looking wretched in equally outlandish finery and I realize I’d forgotten about the juveniles’ formal dinner practice.
“Leonora.”
She instructs her charges to move one of the big tables off to the side. My eyes water at the sick, sweet berry scent of the perfume she wears around her more advanced students. It’s her way of training us not to rely on scent. Two entirely different people may both smell like baby powder, but to confuse them will make the humans suspicious and that is something we cannot afford.
“Are those the female Shifter’s shoes?” I ask, nodding toward Avery, who wobbles miserably on several inches of bright-red sandal.
“She didn’t want them anymore,” Leonora says.
Avery whimpers as she stumbles by, carrying the heavy table. “They hurt, Alpha.”
“It is a flesh wound,” Leonora says gently, “and a useful lesson in the discomfort humans undergo in order to propagate the species. Get the tablecloth and don’t be smug, Adrian. You’re wearing them next.”
“But…but I thought only the females had to wear them.”
“Female humans, but as you are not human, you are next. Tablecloth.”
The two young wolves extract a length of white cloth from one of the big canvas bags we use to carry firewood and shake it free of bits of bark and dried leaves. Soon, one end of the table is covered with a linen tablecloth damasked with cabbage roses and stained with the faded remains of hunters’ blood and hunters’ wine. It is set with hunters’ crystal and hunters’ silver.
“If you’re doing candles again,” I say with a nod toward the glass holders, “make sure there is a bucket of water nearby.”
Soon, the 11th Echelon will be bringing out dinner. I can tell by the sound of clattering plates and the smell of freshly cut bread. Picking up the quarterly estimates, I fit my cold coffee cup between my fingers, then stick the awkward roll with the flight plans under the other arm. Loose pages on the inside of the roll slip out and fall to the floor.
The Shifter slips his hand under the coffee cup still sloshing in my hand.
I hold it tight, and when he bends down to try to retrieve the loose curled pages on the floor, I plant my foot firmly on top of them. The coffee sloshes as I squat down to get to them, but his hand is already there.
“Let me help.”
I stare at him for a second until I remind myself that he isn’t Pack and doesn’t know what it was like to be Alpha. To project strength every minute of every day so that when my wolves are anxious, they can always look to me and be reassured. Even when I was furious and heartsick and my body was racked from my lying-in and the Pack was faced with threats both outside and in, they could look to me and say, “Ah, well, the Alpha is picking up her own damn papers and her own damn coffee so our tiny corner of the world isn’t done yet.”
“Follow me,” I say, pulling the pages away. He lets go with a confused look.
In my office, I put everything down: cup on my desk and the flight plans next to the larger roll of schematics I set on one of the chairs earlier.
“My Gamma will help you get settled.” I spread my hand on top of the worn manila folders I need to look through.
“Alpha?” he asks.
“Hmm.” I open the shallow pencil drawer in my desk and pull out pencil, pen, eraser, and bright-pink stickies.
“I heard your name once, but I’ve forgotten.”
I jot down a quick note, scribble Sten’s name on the other side, then hand it