Chapter 1

Upstate New York, 2018

Wolves who drink smell like Baileys and kibble.

It doesn’t matter that Ronan’s poison is a 7 and 7 and chimichangas at the casino over at Hogansburg, there’s something about our livers that still makes him smell like Baileys and kibble.

He lies slumped partly on his stomach, partly on his side at the edge of the Clearing, the broad expanse of spongy grass and drowned trees that is what remains of an old beaver pond that fell into disrepair when the Pack ate the beavers one lean year. New beavers have established a new pond nearby. Eventually we will eat those too.

And so it goes.

The Clearing is used for ceremonies and rituals because it is open and accommodates larger numbers. Usually the Pack prefers the cool, muffled, fragrant darkness of the forest, treating the Clearing like an anxious Catholic treats the church. We shuffle in on major celebrations and otherwise give it a wide berth.

The Dæling, which I suppose translates most conveniently as “Dealing,” is one of those celebrations. It marks the transition of our age group, our echelon, from juvenile to adult. Here, we are paired off, not as mates yet, but in practice couplings. We will also have our own Alpha who answers only to the Pack Alpha and is responsible for keeping our echelon in line. The whole hierarchy will be set up. Not that it’s permanent or anything, more like the start times assigned before the lengthy competition that is Pack life.

Basically, the Dæling is one enormous squabble. There are challenges for the right to pair with a stronger wolf and challenges for a more elevated place in the hierarchy. Our whole youth has been taken up with tussling and posturing, but now it really counts. A wolf who is pinned to the ground in front of the Pack Alpha is the loser. Period. This sorting out of rankings and couples takes a long time, and the others watch it with endless fascination.

Me? Not so much. Born crippled and a runt, I’ve had to struggle long and hard for my position at the dead bottom of the hierarchy. I’ve never fought anyone, because there is no honor in making me submit, no rank to be won by beating the runt.

Ronan, on the other hand, is big and was once strong enough to be the presumptive Alpha. But he is, as they say, weak of marrow. With no determination or perseverance, he has become filled with fat and drink and resentful dreams of life as it is lived on Netflix. His nose is cold and wet when he’s human and hot and dry when he’s not.

“He’s not much, our Ronan.” That’s what Gran Drava said to me. “But he’s a male and…”

She gave me one more sniff before leaning back on the sofa in the Meeting House, where the 14th Echelon was gathered for her inspection. Her eyes and back are failing, but her sense of smell and her knowledge of Pack bloodlines are not. “And he isn’t within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity.”

So because he is weak of marrow and I am weak of body, we find ourselves together at the bottom of the 14th.

When the Pack Alpha eventually turns our way, I nudge Ronan, who doesn’t stand until I bite him. Finally, he hobbles up, looking at me mournfully with his greasy eyes. Nobody much pays attention as we approach the Alpha. They’re all too busy debriding each other’s wounds and sniffing new companions’ bodies.

John’s paw hangs lazily over the edge of a granite outcropping shot through with mica that shimmers slightly in the moonlight. It seems like a nervous eternity, waiting for John’s pro forma nod of approval.

It doesn’t come. Instead, he pulls himself up, one leg at a time, until he reaches his full height. The paler fur of his belly shimmers as he shakes himself and jumps down to the damp sod.

His nose flares as he approaches us. Anxiously, I push myself closer to Ronan’s flank. John presses his muzzle between us, shoving me away. He sniffs the air around Ronan and starts to slap at Ronan, each hit of his head getting harder until Ronan stumbles backward.

John bares his teeth, snarling.

Ronan blinks a few times as though he is just waking. He wavers unsteadily, trying to comprehend the simple gesture that was all it took to exile him from the protection of our law, our land, our Pack. The sentence that forces him into a life wandering from Pack to Pack searching for a place until he dies in a puddle of blood and/or vomit, like most exiles do.

I scuttle to John, my head and stomach scraping the grass, my tail tucked between my legs, submitting into the earth not because I care about Ronan, but because if he leaves, then I am a lone wolf. There’s an old saying that lone wolves are the only ones who always breed, their children being Frustration and Dissent. That’s why they are given over to their echelon’s Alphas to be their servants, their nidlings. A nidling has nothing, is nothing. Even at the bottom rank, you’re paired with someone who is just as shit a wolf as you are, so at least at home, you don’t have to submit. But the nidling’s life is one of endless submission.

John snaps at me, then at Ronan. I roll on my back, my eyes averted, whimpering. But since he’s made up his mind, no amount of groveling is going to make any difference. John wants Ronan gone. He stands erect, leaning over Ronan’s now-shivering body, and a low growl emerges from deep in his chest. Any second now, he will attack.

Ronan backs away, shell-shocked. He stops for a moment, still looking hopefully at John, until the Alpha lunges forward. The exile trips over his own feet as he turns to go.

He doesn’t even bother to look at me.

John stays alert, watching until Ronan lurches into the dark forest. He listens a moment more to be sure the exile is truly gone before he howls and signals an end to the Dæling. The newly reordered 14th finds their pairs and their places behind John. I’m all the way at the end, where I’m used to being, until our Alpha, Solveig, runs back and, with a growl, reminds me that I am to follow her and her companion, Eudemos, the pairing who now control my life. I take up my place behind them, my tail dragging between my legs.

Stopping suddenly with one paw raised, John focuses on a sharp bark in the night. It is a warning from a perimeter wolf. Probably signaling that a hunter has trespassed on our land. Wolves will be gathering around the interloper now, following the hunter at a silent distance. As there’s nothing like an honor guard of seething wolves to scare off prey, hunters usually give up pretty quickly.

John lifts his head, his nose working hard as he looks toward the north woods. I can smell it too. Over the fragrance of fecund grass and swollen water and bog and sphagnum come the subtle scent of a half-dozen Pack and the overwhelming stench of salt and steel and blood and decay.

With a quick snap of his jaws, our Alpha sends our echelon’s fastest wolf back to Home Pond for older reinforcements. John runs around to the north flank, closely followed by Solveig and Eudemos and the other newly minted leaders of the 14th. His forefeet are light on the damp grass, his hind legs ready to jump. Hunters don’t come this far in. This is past the high gates and barbed fences and threatening signs and the trackless tangle of ancient, upended spruce and their young that are the reminders of a violent blowdown ten years ago.

The footsteps are soft and definitely human. Heel, the controlled curve along the outer rim of the foot. The toe barely grazing the grass. It is the footfall of someone used to stealth. I wouldn’t have heard it at all, except for the occasional stumble.

Solveig’s haunches tighten in front of me.

Finally, a man appears. He blends in with the night, so it is only when he walks into the moonlit clearing that we can see him. Sometimes we say someone has a heart or an ego or an appetite “as big as night.”

But this tall, broad-shouldered human is really as big as night.

He pauses for a moment before threading his way through the wolves and lowering his body into the center of the Clearing. He crosses his jeans-clad legs. His feet are bare. Aside from a dark jacket, he has only two things:

A gun and a gaping hole in his stomach.