First Moon Rising

THE MAN WHO LOOKED AT THE FLOOR

Louis Lowe had never been to Emerald Forest before. I knew because his shoes were wrong.

In Obsidian, everyone wears low heels for marble. The marble is polished every morning and if you wear flat soles you slip and the high ranked laugh. Emerald border after rain is different. It is mud that sucks your foot. It is mud that holds your ankle and does not let go. Louis came in his Alpha meeting loafers, the ones I used to polish for him at midnight with the small cloth and the oil that smelled like lemon, and in three steps they were brown. In five steps they were black. In seven steps they made a sound like kissing.

He saw me on a ladder, fixing the cottage fence. White ghost root drying behind me on racks. Hands dirty. Grey work clothes that Nora gave me, too big in shoulders, rolled at sleeves. Hair tied with string. No powder. No perfume.

He stopped at the fence line where white turns to grey. Where his map said white was unclaimed and my sign now said grey was protected.

"Izel. You need to come back. My father is furious. You took three tons without signing. The ledger is open."

His voice was the same voice he used for meetings. Tight. Controlled. The voice he used when Rose knocked over water on my papers and he said Izel will clean it.

"Are you here in official capacity, Next Alpha Lowe?" I asked, loud enough for the pups behind the drying racks to hear. I wanted them to hear. I wanted Nora to log. "Clause Nine, Section Two says any Obsidian official entering grey zone must have Yorkfang escort. You don't. You are trespassing on a graveyard. I can log as breach."

He flinched. He hated my formal voice. He was used to my midnight voice. The small voice that said yes I will rewrite it and no I will not tell and yes I understand we keep us quiet.

"Don't do this. My father says you took inventory without authorization. He says you burned two tons this morning without approval. Rose said you burned hers."

"Rose is what? Presenting my work in my dress again?" My hammer slipped from my hand. He caught my wrist fast, reflex. He always caught things.

No burn. No spark. Just empty. Skin on skin like touching a table. Like touching paper.

Yesterday when Colten checked my pulse to see if fever had come from touching shipment two, we both burned and cleared. A silver flash from my lines to his black veins. It hurt and it healed. Louis touch did nothing. It felt like nothing. Like two years of midnight work.

He felt it too. His hand dropped fast like I burned him, but I didn't.

"I made you," he said, voice lower now, not meeting voice, midnight voice, trying to make it intimate so pups would not hear. "Two years I let you stay as PA when everyone said fire the unshifted girl. The council said you were last ranked and useless and I said no, she can write. I protected you. I told you to keep us quiet to protect you. You know what high ranked girls do to girls who claim Next Alpha."

I came down the ladder now. One rung. Two rungs. Eye level. Fence between us. Mud on my boots. Mud on his loafers. Hammer in my other hand.

"You told me to add Clause Nine," I said. I kept my voice even. I had practiced this. "At one thirteen a.m. Three nights before presentation. You were at my desk. You said, mark north ridge grey, not white. You tapped the map with your pen. You said grey is safer for you, Izel. White is open. Grey is protected. You remember?"

"I said as hypothetical," he said fast. "As idea. I didn't say put it in binding draft. I didn't say hammer it into fence post. My father says it makes us look like we let pups die for twenty years to keep tax. Do you know what that does to our image?"

"Didn't you?" I asked.

He went red. Red from neck to ears. That red he gets when father scolds him in front of council.

"My father will annul the alliance. Come back. Rewrite without Clause Nine. Apologize to Rose. She cried all night because you embarrassed her. I can save your job. Be Rose's assistant. More suitable for last ranked. You can still write but she will present. That is fair."

"For last ranked?" I said.

Behind Louis, bare feet in mud. No sound. Colten. I did not hear him come. He never makes sound barefoot.

Shirt off. Bandages on his ribs still but cleaner. My paste on his arms, white and thick, the paste I made bare handed that turned my fingertips grey. Less hollow than yesterday. Less like dying man. More like Alpha who finally slept one hour without screaming.

"Next Alpha Lowe," Colten said. His voice was low but it carried to the racks. To the pups. To Nora in hut. "You are in my grey zone without escort. That is violation of Clause Nine, Section Two, which you called invalid yesterday in your border report. So which is it? Invalid, or breaching? You choose. Both is fine but I log either."

Louis turned. He had to look up. Colten is taller even when sick.

"Alpha Yorkfang, internal Obsidian matter. My employee took property and burned property. This is -"

"Your employee?" Colten came closer, mud not bothering his bare feet. "Izel Stone is Emerald liaison, appointed under Clause Nine, ratified by your Alpha's seal and mine. She lives in this cottage. Which I own. On land you marked grey on your own map and called unclaimed to avoid patrol. So she is under my protection. While in grey zone."

Protection. Pack word. Heavy word. In Obsidian, protection means if you touch her, you touch whole pack. If you insult her, you insult Alpha. Louis knows that word. He studied pack law for Next Alpha exam. He failed first time.

"Izel," Louis tried soft voice again, eyes on me, ignoring Colten, trying to make it just us. The way he did at midnight. "Please. Come home. We can talk about us. I was going to tell father after alliance. About us. I was going to make you -"

"What we had?" I laughed. Loud. Too loud. Pups heard. Good. "We had you telling me to keep quiet for my own good while you let my sister wear my dress. You looking at the floor when I said I wrote proposal. You telling me to take out clause that could save pups because it makes you look bad."

I pulled the official seal from my pocket. Emerald liaison seal, grey stone, heavy. And hammered it into the fence post. Bam. Loud. Wood cracked.

"This fence is grey zone. You cross again without escort, I log as breach and impound your patrol herbs. As per Section Four, which I wrote. Which you called hypothetical."

Louis stared at seal in wood. At my dirty hands. At my grey clothes. At Colten barefoot with black veins that were now at shoulders, not throat, because of my paste.

He understood. Not coming back as boyfriend. Not coming back as boss.

He turned and walked to Obsidian, mud sucking his loafers each step, making that kissing sound. Guards at border stared at me like they never saw me before. Like I was not last ranked.

When he was gone, my hands were shaking so bad I dropped hammer.

Colten's hand hovered next to mine, not touching. Offering. Asking. Remembering rule. If I tell you not touch me, you don't. That is pack law for mates but we are not mates.

"You didn't need me," he said quietly, only I could hear. "You handled better than I could have. Better than I did with my father."

"I did," I said, voice shaking, but I smiled. First real smile since he collapsed.

He nodded and turned to go back to soak. To healer hut where water was waiting. Two steps. Only two steps on mud that did not suck his feet because he has no shoes to lose.

And he collapsed face first into the mud. Hard. No hands out. Like tree cut.

Nora screamed from healer hut. "COLTEN!"

I flipped him. Mud on his face, on his chest, in his hair. Eyes fully black. No amber. Black veins shot up his neck to his jaw, pulsing fast, thick as roots. Black blood from his nose, thin line onto mud.

He grabbed my wrist with cold hand. Strong even while dying.

"Shipment. Ghost root you inventoried this morning. Where did it come from? Which store? East or West? Tell me now."