The man who howled for me

Chapter four:pack law

From the inside, the Renwick house was much different than it appeared from the street, not nearly as sterile, more lived in, the pictures crowding the mantle over a fireplace actually having been burned in at some point. Micah led her through it with none of the unease of someone just arriving, more like a man on second nature after having walked the grounds before.

Elena was waiting in the kitchen, arms crossed, her expression one of vague disappointment as she took in Ava's appearance. “You brought her,” Elena stated rather than asked.

“She already knows,” Micah said, shrugging. “Wouldn't be much good to her if she didn't, and better she hear the whole of it from us than stumble upon the wrong bits and get herself killed another way.”

Elena's gaze slid over Ava, assessing, taking in the woman as if weighing whether she might take a bite out of her or not. “She's a person,” Elena said at last, as if that concluded the matter.

“That's the trouble,” Micah said. “People who know don't get to just walk away once they know, and you know that better than anyone.”

Elena clenched her jaw. Some old argument was obviously surfacing between them, worn smooth by repetition. “Fine,” she said at last. “But if this goes wrong, it's not just you who's gonna pay for it. It's all of us.”

Ava felt like furniture, standing there between two people who loved each other so much they were willing to fight this hard about her safety without either one asking what she actually wanted. “I'm right here,” she said. “You can talk to me, instead of talking about me while I'm standing here.”

Elena's gaze cut to her, reluctant respect breaking through the irritation. “Fair enough,” said Elena, and some of the edge went out of her voice, replaced by something closer to grudging honesty. “Well, here's the short version. We are not the only pack in this territory. There's another family, out beyond the ridge, who believe that humans should never know what we are. No exceptions. No girlfriends. No one.”

“Their answer to a human learning the truth is usually simple,” Micah added in a low voice. “They make sure the human can't tell anyone.”

She felt the room cool several degrees, although nothing had changed physically. “So there are people out there who would want to hurt me,” she said slowly, “just for knowing what you are.”

“Not people,” Elena corrected. “Wolves. And their alpha doesn't need any reason. His name is Damon Voss,” Micah said, and there was something in his voice that tightened at the name itself, old and ancient history put into two words. “He's wanted this territory for years, and the only thing between him and taking it is my family's bloodline. A man attached to me is more than a liability. He would swing it like a club and not even blink.”

Ava folded her arms across her chest, the kitchen suddenly feeling too small for what she was hearing. “And you're telling me this because—”

“Because you deserve to know what you walked into,” Micah said. “This is no fairy tale. Not a secret you get to enjoy from a distance. A real threat with real consequences, that won't go away just because you decided to be brave.”

Then, an older woman walked into the room. Her silver hair flowed around her like the trailing robes of a priestess from days gone by, but there was a definite authority in her appearance, a certainty that came from a lifetime of being obeyed. Elena automatically straightened herself when she saw her, a small part of her mind telling her she had never been particularly good at saying no to someone who carried that particular air of command.

“This is Mira,” Micah announced unnecessarily. “She's a pack elder, sees to it that we don't get too far into our own heads to forget who we are.”

Mira studied Ava for a long moment, taking in the scratches on her cheek, the torn clothes, the general disheveled look of someone who'd just spent a considerable amount of time trying to outrun something that really wanted to hurt them. “So, this is the one that chased him into the woods,” she drawled, her voice lacking in all sympathy. “Brave little thing. Or foolish, depending on whose side you're on.”

Ava choked back a laugh. “I think I've heard that one more times than I care to count tonight.”

Mira's face softened, just a little. The sternness was replaced by something more contemplative. She pointed at the table. “Come,” she said. “If you're going to stay, you ought to hear the rest properly, not standing in doorways like a stranger waiting to be told to go.”

After that they talked for the better part of an hour, Mira explaining pack law in plain, patient terms, Elena adding sharp corrections whenever the explanation got too gentle for her taste. Ava drank it all in, even as her mind kept circling back to those two points of gold light in the dark, to the noise Micah had made in the middle of his shift, to the cautious way he'd been watching her ever since, as if he was waiting for her to run at any moment and hadn't quite believed she wouldn't.

By the time Elena and Mira let them walk Ava home, the night had softened and grown quiet around them, the tension lightened from everyone who had felt it. Micah walked beside her, silent for most of the walk, hands in his pockets, his posture less rigid than it had been in the moments right after they had met.

“You didn't have to tell me all of that tonight,” she said eventually. “You could've just let me leave in the morning and never told me anything at all.”

“I could have,” he admitted. “And I did, for ten years, without fail. Something about tonight, however, made me think it would be unwise to let tonight become another day when no one ever needs to know.”

Ava threw him a surprised sidelong look, realizing just how much telling her these things had cost him to say out loud. They stopped at her porch steps, the distance between them smaller than either of them would admit.

“Thanks,” Ava said. “For trusting me with this, even if you obviously didn't want to.”

A curve appeared on Micah's mouth, the closest thing to a real smile she had seen from him yet. “Don't thank me yet,” he said. “Trust like that costs, and we haven't gotten to the part where you find out what it is.”

Ava stared a beat longer than she should have. “I think I'm beginning to see that,” she said, and did not draw back.