Axel
By dinner, the whole pack knew.
Wolves are terrible at secrets. It isn't malice, exactly. It's the nose, the ears, the bond humming under every conversation like a live wire. Silver light pouring out of a woman's hands in the middle of the den had left a scent signature that hung in the house like thunder before a storm, ozone and lavender and something colder underneath, and it had seeped into every room by the time the sun went down. Doors that had been left open were quietly shut. Voices dropped. In the kitchen, a pot boiled over on the stove, and nobody moved to take it off the flame. Out past the training field, a crow had dropped stunned from the fence line when the wards flinched, and I'd carried it into the barn myself and said nothing to anyone.
Lowen and I had gotten Cele
