Trapped by the Bond

ith her sleeves rolled up and a bowl of dough in fr

down. You look like a man

s fine. The hous

e your grandmother was born." She turned the dough out onto the tabl

bout the l

before. I

that door, and you know what they say after a few glasses of whisky." I sat down at the table

lour on her forearms and a smudge of it on her cheek, and her g

eld went out of use ten years ago, the pack said the Alpha knows. When the forestry men came up the road with their clipboards, th

ou say

. My rank is the bottom of this pack, and the bottom of a pack is a good place to be if you

true and we b

ond time they stayed for dinner and my father's cousin's boy served them and he has not spoken to me since. The third time they did not come into the house at all. They went up the north trac

." I took out my ledger. "Who else

not cou

io

loth and dropped it on the table. "You are a clever man, auditor. You have a pin and a ledger and a face that makes people want to tell you

her mother's bread before that, and about a bad batch she had made in the winter of

t of nothing in my ledger and

indows at either end, and I was halfway down it when Is

e you been

g to yo

s not talk

d to me ab

la looked up and down the corridor, and her

a job

k a step closer. Her black hair was loose around her face today, and there was a small cut on her thumb from a knife or a jar. "My father has kept this pack for thirty-one yea

an with a pencil is the

short, unwilling sound, and pressed he

ot funny,"

old tha

the window, then at the door behind her, then at me. "T

nt up it with your father and th

she opened them, something in her face

said

daughter had a fever and he sat with her until two in the morning." Her voice

hen who was on the north

ame back muddy and the Beta has a story about being somewhere he was not, and the only wolf in this ho

ave the sa

again. Go back to Inverness and write a report about a hole in a ledger and a forestry company that paid a fair

if I

stay too long." She turned to go, and then she stopped,

f flour on my sleeve where I had l

I said. "From

ll the herbs on her hands. She did not touch the sleeve. She only looked a

eeve was faint and fine, like a p

she said. "Silver dust comes from a vault.

id n

me, and her green eyes were wide now. "There is a wolf in this house who wants the Council to find silver in your pos

d coming in from both windows, and somewhere above us a door ope

Do not touch your coat with your bare hands a

then

k about who wants you