comets, and before the first comet found its orbit, he was bored.
“He returned to Ceald, who had changed into skin. ‘What do you want, god?’ she said, still panting from the millennia spent keeping him on course.
“‘Aren’t you going to chase me?’
“‘Now you want me to chase you?’ She looked at him disdainfully.
“‘Isn’t that your job?’ he asked, peeved that she’d dared look at him disdainfully. He was Mani, the bright and shining moon, seeder of stars and kicker of comets.
“‘No, it’s your job,’ she said, kneading her knotted calf. ‘I should not have to hunt you across the skies to make you do it. My duty is to make sure the world lives and dies and lives again in time. To make sure that my Pack has an Iron Moon so that they can be wild and together.’
“Mani saw the knotted muscle under Ceald’s fingers. He saw a rim of sweat on her dark brow. He saw the depth of her purpose and her love for something that was not herself, and he reached out his hand to his ancient enemy. Under his cool fingers, the knot unknotted. His hand moved up, bringing peace to the still-vibrating length of her bare leg. Then he touched her hip and Ceald felt something beyond peace and reached for him, taking the sharp cold of his body into her own.
“Háte saw his packmate with her god lover and herded Sol, keeping her in place for the longest day, so that Mani and Ceald would have time.
“In time, Mani became one of the few gods who understood that the world did not revolve around him. From then on, he revolved around the world, no longer chased by Ceald but accompanied by her. Hand in hand or hand on ruff. Later, when Háte put off his wild form to take Sol’s burning body, too searing for anyone except Heat itself, Mani and Ceald held on to the sky for the longest night.
“After that long day of the summer solstice comes the Silence of Summer, the quiet time while earth’s children busy themselves for the coming season of death. After the long night of the winter solstice comes the Silence of Winter, when earth’s children rest in preparation for the coming season of life.”
Aella squints up at the sky and the sun.
“Are they fucking now?”
“Not until the solstice. Remember, what is important is not the wolf or the god or when they are fucking. What we should take away from this story is that wolves have responsibility not only to themselves and their pack but to the entire balance of life.”
Tara calls, announcing the beginning of the Iron Moon Table.
“Coming,” I say, my tendon tightening under Constantine’s hand. He pulls his hand away and flattens it against his chest.
Chapter 28
Constantine
Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
I ate well during the Iron Moon. Feral bacon. Leftover turkey. Frog: it looked like it would be cool and refreshing, an amuse-gueule, but it wasn’t and I will not make that mistake again.
Cassius clearly ate nothing and falls on the serving platters like a… I’d say “wolf,” but it hardly seems appropriate. He always sits in the same corner of the 9th’s table, hunched over his food as though it’s the only thing that matters, but I see the glint of his eyes as they sweep the room, watching. I see the way he turns his head, listening.
I don’t disguise the fact that I’m watching him. He doesn’t acknowledge me, beyond a malicious smile. When he is done, two wolves who had been lying unseen on the floor follow him out.
Poul hovers behind the Alpha, and even though I know that when she did what she wanted to, she did it with me, it still makes me angry that he is allowed to touch her openly and I am not. To leave traces of his DNA on her cheek and take hers onto his. Just because he is Pack and she is his Alpha.
Her top lip flickers upward, showing her canine, but then purses tightly, the only sign of her exasperation.
“Why doesn’t she like him?”
“Who? Pass the bread.”
“Poul, Ziggy.” I push the big basket toward him. “Why doesn’t the Alpha like Poul?”
He tears off a piece of black bread. When he looks toward the 10th’s Alpha, he frowns.
“Before Quicksilver, the noseless dog”—Ziggy spits three times, puuh, puuh, puuh—“was our Deemer.” I remember the body of the man with the small hole in his chest. The one whose face had