Chapter 21

I think Ti believes the Pack has an innate passion for hierarchies and laws and traditions. That’s not it at all. It’s that the complicated logistics of dealing with those three dumb, thumbless days force us to have all those hierarchies and laws and traditions. If it weren’t for the Iron Moon, our orbits would have tightened long ago, shedding the Pack in favor of family until eventually we whirled in a tight circle of just ourselves alone.

Then we would have become like Shifters: human except with grumpy lunar dispositions.

“You know John’s still going to be watching you.”

“I figured as much.”

“Are you really sure this is what you want to do?”

“I just can’t, Silver. I think if I spent three days as a wolf, I’d never be able to turn back.”

“Well, you better learn how, because I’m not doing this for you again.”

“Just do it, will you? Wait, not yet. The gag.”

I give Ti the thick, folded strap of clean T-shirt. As soon as he grips it between his teeth, he nods, and I bring the maul down hard on his leg.

Not sure the gag was even necessary. He doesn’t scream at all, just gives a cracked groan. A light sheen of sweat covers his face.

“I heard a snap. Do you think it worked?”

He nods, the gag still clenched tight in his jaws.

“Good. Like I said, not doing that again.”

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but I finally get Ti up. He drapes his arm over my shoulder. The sweat under his arm soaks into my shirt.

“How did you say this happened?” Tristan asks.

I explain how Ti slipped while jumping over that little gully.

“The one near the bayberry?”

“No. The one where the moose was sick and we herded him to the edge, and we thought we might be able to have moose, but John made us wait to see if it got better and then it got better?”

“That was a terrible day,” Tristan says, nodding sadly. “Tragic.”

“I know.” I sigh. “Do you think we’ll ever have moose?”

“Excuse me,” Ti hisses. “My leg?”

“Oh, yes. Oblique fracture of the tibia. For anyone else, I wouldn’t set it this close to the Iron Moon, and they’d just have to deal with the pain of changing. Since you don’t have to change, I will set it. But be sure you tell John what happened.”

When I tell John, I can see in his expression that our Alpha isn’t happy about Ti spending the Iron Moon in skin when all the rest of us are wild. Tara sets up a rotation to watch him. She will also turn off the Wi-Fi, I guess so my bedfellow won’t be tempted to buy a gun on Amazon.

Windows are closed, anything that might spoil over the next three days is composted, and the propane to the stove is switched off. The start batteries and fuel levels for the emergency generators are checked, because if something happens when we’re changed, there’s not a thing we can do about it, and nobody wants the pipes to freeze.

John’s answering machine now says that he has gone to Florida to visit an ailing relative and please leave a message. Meeep.

Marco must have drawn gate duty, because he comes trotting up the path from the access road with his iPad and Elijah, whose hectic life Offland means he’s always late to Homelands. With everyone checked in, the tall barbed gate is chained. Most of the Homelands is just posted, but the mile near the access road has been fenced with a six-foot-high, razor-wire-topped chain-link. Humans will happily buck the law and hunt on our land, but we have found that forcing them to carry a two-hundred-pound carcass over a mile to their illegally parked cars has significantly reduced their numbers.

At six o’clock, we all gather at the Great Hall. Friends who haven’t seen one another for a month exchange greetings and bits of news while we strip down, putting our clothes in neat little stacks on sofas and benches and chairs.

We head out into the blue-gray gloaming. John is the last out, as always, and pulls the door closed behind him. I’m surprised to find Ti sitting on a log in his single work boot and sweatpants. One leg is cut high over the purple-wrapped cast. He has a thick anorak and a crutch.

Everyone takes a seat, watching. The sun is no longer visible beyond the peaks, but its rays color the clouds on the horizon a golden peach. A light dusting of mist rises from Home Pond into the newly frigid air. The grass is already a little crunchy under my bare feet, and I know tomorrow it will be covered with hoarfrost.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Wanted to help you with your leg. You helped with mine, so it’s the least I can do.”

I probably shouldn’t let him fix my leg, but maybe just this one time. To have one Iron Moon when I can keep up with everyone else, when I can maybe even squeeze my way in and get something better than bones and hide at one of the bigger kills. I sit, leaning against his good leg, because if the Iron Moon takes you when you’re standing, you will topple over like a rotten beech in a gale.

The sun has almost set, and there are a few final murmurs of Eadig wáþ, which is still always said in the Old Tongue, because “Happy Hunting” doesn’t begin to capture the full sense of wáþ, of wandering and journeying and, yes, hunting.

The inevitable reply, “And be yourself not hunted,” has just one meaning.

The only other noises are from the pups, who run everywhere barking and yipping and scrabbling over the adults who will join in the running and leaping and hunting. John always brings a lung back from one of the bigger hunts for the pups to fight over.

“Don’t they have to be in skin before the Iron Moon?” Ti asks, pointing with his chin toward the yipping tangle of fluff.

“The Iron Moon makes us wilder, but since there is nothing wilder than a wolf pup, they’re kind of immune. It’s only when they start taming that they are in danger. After the Year of First Shoes.”

John and Evie sit near the front, watching the gold being sucked out of the sky.

He lays her down gently and curls his body around hers.

“What happened to John?” Ti points at the Alpha’s shredded skin.

But it’s too late. The gold is gone, and my heart is already beating faster, my blood is running hotter, my face is distorting, and as the roof of my mouth lengthens and narrows, I have said my last word of the Iron Moon.

Maybe Ti said something else, but I can’t tell through the ocean rumble in my changing ears. I feel his hands on my hip and my leg.

Through one unfocused eye, I see his achingly handsome face bent over me. I try to turn away, because I love him now, and as much as I hate myself for this petty vanity, I don’t want him to see this horrifying midway point.

Of course I love him. Only a wolf who loved him would break his leg with a maul so he could stay human.

He pulls hard, and I yelp, my leg twisting, the tendon being pushed back, and he lets go, and my leg goes numb. When I’ve finished phasing, I stand and shake it out.

I finish first and run around the writhing Pack, showing off the speed and agility that they have always had but still feels new to me. A pup jumps on me, because I’m a competent adult, damn it, and it’s time to get this hunt cracking. I tear around the Great Hall, a whole covey of fur balls following me.

When John finishes his change, he shakes his magnificent coat of tan and dark gray, then throws back his head. The whole pack howls to the world, announcing the untamed joy of being us.

On his two legs, Ti towers among the roiling mass of giant wolves. He turns to go, but before he does, I jump up, my front paws on his chest. I lean my head against him, then twirl around and bound after the Pack.

Kayla noses my hip and cocks her head to the side. I leap into the air. See? I show her. See?

Mostly we range wide in small groups or in pairs of mates or bedfellows or shielders, returning only occasionally to Home Pond. When the pups tire out and can’t keep up, someone has to guide them back home so the coyotes won’t pick them off. Since it’s my turn to watch Ti, I drag the deer lung back to the Great Hall, and the pups come trundling after.

That night when I take up my position by the Boathouse, Ti is reading in bed, looking so human and lonely. I watch him intently from the deep black of the overcast Adirondack night. Sitting absolutely still on the dock, I follow the shape of his thighs under the warm fleece blankets up to his hard, ropy stomach and the folds of dark skin leading to his thick, naked chest. His long, strong fingers swipe across the touch screen.

Finally, he puts down the tablet but doesn’t turn off the light. Instead, he kicks off the covers with his good leg. Did I imagine he wore pajamas just because I’m not there? Did I imagine he wouldn’t have an erection, just because I’m not there? He slides his hand slowly across his chest. He pinches his nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Not hard, but firmly and slowly and deliberately. The other hand slides further down. He lifts his good knee. I can see everything as his hand gently cups the twinned weights. He knows how much I like to feel them heavy in my hand. He tightens his fingers, tugging until the skin is smooth and taut around them and his erection leaps slightly from his torso. He makes a fist in front and pushes in until he crowns.

Somehow, without me noticing, my front legs straightened, and I shuffled closer to the glass, every muscle tight.

Slowly, he pulls back out. He doesn’t move his hand much. It’s all in the hips, in the languorous rocking of those perfect thighs and that fighter’s torso, pushing into and pulling out of that hand, which simply cannot appreciate the honor done to it.

He props his other arm under his head, his obsidian-and-gold eyes focused straight into mine. His mouth opens, his eyes grow hazy, and great pale streaks slash across his chest.

I stumble back, whining, and Ti smiles.

Drawing far back into the dark, I wait for my replacement.

It starts to snow. Not heavily, just the light, small flakes that gild leaves for a day or two before melting. It does nothing to mute the light scritching of claws. I lay my muzzle to the new wolf, handing over responsibility, then I break into a run.

Higher up, the snow churns around me and the downed leaves swirl behind me and I run with my whole legs, faster than snow or wind.

Past the High Pines and the Krummholz, I keep going until I hit the incised rock of the peaks. Up here, the wind cuts through even the thickening undercoat, but the chill feels so good on my skin.

Exposed and without much prey, the Pack doesn’t bother much with the peaks, but from here, the Homelands spread out soft and muted. Leaves look cottony; needles are frilled. In the overcast night, the dusky clouds of tomorrow’s snow settle in the valleys like gray ribbons.

I throw back my head and howl.

“I am.”

From scattered hills and deep forests, wolves answer.

“We are.”

* * *

On the final day of the Iron Moon, we gather back near the Great Hall. Except for the occasional bunny snack, no one is hunting much now, though Tara came across a beaver who was too slow and too stupid to get out of her way. She wasn’t hungry, but she did her duty to the beaver gene pool and brought the still-warm body back for the pups.

Mostly, now that everyone’s eaten their fill, they fight. This is the most boring part of the Iron Moon. Challenges are mounted and met. Echelons are rearranged. Fucking rights are gained and lost. Ti finds me at the palisade and puts his hand in my ruff. He’s no longer using his crutch.

I butt him irritably and stalk off. I can’t masturbate thankyouverymuch and am in an extremely pissy mood.

He tries to keep up but then steps in something. “Oh hell,” he says, jumping back on one foot. “What is that?”

When the sunlight finally emerges on the third day, we go through the whole process in reverse. There are always a few stragglers out in the woods, but when it starts to get cold, nobody wants to be too far from home in their bare skin.

I pull my clothes back on and brush my teeth quickly but don’t even bother to comb the burrs out of my hair before I rush to find Ti, who is already running across the lawn. “I heal quickly,” he says before I splutter out anything about his missing cast. He scoops me up, wrapping his arms around me, and twirls back toward the Boathouse.

“Three things,” I whisper to him. “About John’s back—it’s an Alpha thing. What you stepped in was beaver intestine. And what the hell were you reading?”

“The New Yorker,” he says and kicks open the door.