steel-gray birthright of her eyes hard on mine while she rips it to shreds and throws it on the floor.
“And yes,” she says to Arthur, “I know I have to sweep that up.”
He chortles and she smiles a big smile with lots of teeth that makes her cheeks look fat like Cassius always warned her it would, and I know that Cassius has misread the signs and doesn’t understand that the man he should be worried about is not the Viking with the ponytail, but the slim man with the brown hair who splayed himself naked on the damp ground, his jaws clamped shut, his eyes wide open, waiting to be ripped apart by wolves.
Chapter 21
Evie
My first Offland meeting as Alpha had taken so much preparation. For days, Tara had prepped me on questions of engineering; Josi, on questions of the law; Leonora, on how to handle humans. I needed to be able to answer every petty, pointless question so they did not have any excuse to inspect Homelands.
I’ve gotten better at it, better at lining up my facts, better at identifying what Leonora calls bullshit. But in the end, to protect my Pack, I have to know four times as much as all the humans in the room.
I unroll another map, holding it open with skunk skull from the shelf of First Kills, rehearsing my responses for the Community Wildfire Protection Plan meeting.
The chart with water pressures riffles and floats slowly to the floor in the suddenly bright air. At the window, I taste the coolness of the breeze and the warmth of the ground and the scuttling lacy clouds against blue.
I’m not the only one who feels it: Pack emerge blinking into the sunlight. They are ill-tempered and ill at ease. Days spent inside hiding from blackfly do that. Soon, they begin circling me, bodies shivering with need.
“Go! Go!” I say loudly. “Before it’s too late.”
And they go.
“Rinnaþ, wulfas,” I whisper to myself.
Run, wolves.
The wild bursts out of them, and in their excitement, things are left undone. The stove is still on. The milk is out. A screen in the library is wide open. Clothes are strewn everywhere.
“Alpha,” says Leonora.
“Aren’t you going out running?”
“I thought we’d take this opportunity to go swimming, but”—the children are already pulling off shirts, whooping around, their arms waving in a premature celebration of nakedness—“we will need some adults.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
Arne runs back in, his back covered in pine needles.
“Forgot to turn off the stove,” he says.
“I did it, but, Arne, as soon as the 8th is changed, send them to Home Pond. Leonora is taking the class swimming.”
I squat down to pick up an armload of clothes.
“What’s happened?” says Constantine. “We were working and then everyone disappeared.”
“Blackfly don’t like strong winds and bright sun. It gives the Pack a chance to run.”
“Why’d humans hafta wear clowes t’go simming?” complains Edmund, coming up the stairs. “And why is the shit and pans so liddow?”
“Because humans think that by hiding evidence of their fucking, they can pretend they are more than animals,” she says. “The quicker you get dressed, the quicker we get to the water. Now, let’s see how well you’ve done.”
Edmund emerges from the stairs, pulling on a clearly uncomfortable blue-and-white-gingham bikini. Aella is wearing a pair of long shorts with skulls and a daisy-print tank top. Leofric has on a pink one-piece that covers the back but leaves the nipples exposed, which as I recall is acceptable because he’s male.
“Alpha? Would you like to comment on how the class has done?”
I wave her off. Those lessons were long ago, and I’ve forgotten everything save for that single arbitrary fact that while male nipples may be exposed, female nipples must never be.
She turns around. “Shifter, you will know,” she says.
“It’s Constantine, Leonora,” I say. Leonora pauses for a moment then her eyes flicker down, acquiescing. She starts again. “Well, Constantine, how has the class done?”
He had been watching me, a curious expression on his face, but now he reluctantly turns to the children. I know they’re not right. Their legs twitch, their dirty feet shivering in anticipation. They are unsure what to do with arms that until recently were used for running. And Margaret is really too old to be licking Oliver’s ear.
They hold their heads cocked to the side in hopeful angles.
He turns back to me. “Beautiful,” he whispers, a low hitch in his voice.
Then with a steadier voice, he tells Leonora that her charges are perfect.