THE WOLF THAT WALKED

Chapter 10: What Grey Won't Say

The name Sasha Volkov hung in the air between us like smoke from a fire I hadn't seen coming. A trauma surgeon. A human. The only person Viktor Thorne trusted.

"Why would a human doctor help us?"

"Not us. You. And she might not help at all. But she was there during Aldric's final months. She treated him. Or tried to. The silver poisoning was too advanced by the time she got involved, but she bought him time. Months. Maybe a year. Enough time for him to finish whatever search led him to you."

I got up and walked to the boarded window. Through a crack in the plywood I could see a sliver of the street outside. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Walking dogs. Pushing strollers. Living lives where monsters were something that happened in movies.

"How did a human get involved with a four-hundred-year-old wolf?"

Grey said. It was the first human sound I'd heard him make in days. Weariness. Frustration. Fear. "Sasha Volkov was a resident at Chicago Mercy eight years ago. Night shift. A patient came in with injuries that should have been fatal. Multiple stab wounds. Internal bleeding. Cardiac arrest on the table. She brought him back. Twice. The patient was Viktor Thorne."

"Someone tried to kill Viktor?"

"Someone succeeded. For about ninety seconds. His heart stopped. She restarted it. When Viktor woke up, he had a new appreciation for human medicine. He recruited her. Quietly. Generously. She doesn't work for Nacht directly. She's not one of them. But she's aware of what they are, and she's chosen to keep that knowledge to herself in exchange for resources and protection."

"And she treated Aldric."

"She was the only person Aldric trusted at the end. Viktor and Aldric hated each other, but Viktor needed Aldric alive. Aldric was the last repository of certain knowledge. Bloodline histories. Territorial claims. Old alliances. Things Viktor couldn't afford to lose. So he sent Sasha to keep Aldric alive as long as possible, and Aldric, in his final weeks, talked to her. Told her things."

"What kind of things?"

"I don't know." Grey's voice was flat. The admission cost him something. I could see it in the way his shoulders tightened, the way his jaw set. Grey was a man who survived by knowing things. Not knowing was physically painful for him.

"You've been tracking Aldric for years. You knew he was dying. You knew he was searching for something. But you don't know what he found."

"No."

"And you don't know why it was me."

"No."

"So everything you've been telling me. The training. The history. The warnings about the Order and Viktor. All of it is just the surface. The real reason any of this is happening, the reason my entire life has been a setup, the reason a dying wolf chose a foster kid from Chicago's south side to inherit his bloodline. You have no idea."

Grey met my eyes. "That's correct."

I should have been angry. I was angry. But underneath the anger was something worse. Fear. Not of Grey. Not of Viktor. Not even of the Order with their satellites and their scalpels. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the thing inside me that I didn't understand, that nobody understood, that might be something other than what Grey had been preparing me for.

"What if I'm not just a wolf?" I said. "What if whatever Aldric saw in me is something else? Something worse?"

"It doesn't matter."

"How can you say that?"

"Because whatever you are, you're still you. The virus doesn't change who you are. It amplifies what's already there. If you're angry, it makes you angrier. If you're afraid, it makes you more afraid. If you're capable of violence, it gives you the tools. But it doesn't create anything. It just reveals."

"And if what it reveals is something monstrous?"

Grey was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was softer than I'd ever heard it. "Then we deal with that. Together. But I don't believe that's what Aldric saw. He was dying. He was in agony. He didn't have the strength or the time to invest in something that would become a monster. He was looking for something specific. Something he thought was worth dying for."

I looked at the boarded window. The sliver of daylight was fading. The city was settling into evening. Somewhere out there, Sasha Volkov was probably finishing a surgery or starting a shift or going home to an apartment that smelled like coffee and antiseptic. Somewhere out there, Viktor Thorne was waiting for me to make a move. Somewhere out there, the Order was tracking my heat signature and planning their next step.

"When do we go to her?"

"Soon. But we go carefully. Viktor will know the moment we make contact. He'll have eyes on her. He'll have people watching. The question is whether he'll let us reach her or stop us before we get close."

"Why would he let us?"

"Because Viktor wants answers too. And he knows Sasha might tell you things she wouldn't tell him. She liked Aldric. Trusted him. That's rare in Viktor's world. If Aldric told her something he kept from Viktor, Viktor can't force it out of her without destroying the relationship. But if she tells you voluntarily. If she chooses to share what she knows with Aldric's heir."

"Then Viktor gets what he wants without getting his hands dirty."

"Exactly."

I walked back to the table and looked at the cloth-covered coin. It was still there. Still gleaming. Still promising something I wasn't sure I wanted.

"What happens after? After we find out whatever it is Aldric was looking for."

Grey stood up and crossed to the weapon rack. He selected a knife with a handle wrapped in worn leather and a blade that caught the lamplight in ways that suggested silver content.

"After, we train harder. We prepare for the full moon. We deal with the Order. We navigate whatever Viktor wants from you. And we survive." He slid the knife into a sheath at his belt. "One step at a time. First, Sasha. Then answers. Then everything else."

He was keeping something from me. I could feel it the way I could feel the coin's wrongness from across the room. Something about Sasha. Something about Aldric. Something about whatever connected me to both of them. But pushing Grey never worked. He gave information the way a miser gave coins. One at a time. Only what was necessary.

"One question," I said. "Before we go."

"Ask."

"What aren't you telling me?"

Grey's mouth tightened. For a long moment I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he looked at me with those silver eyes and said, "Sasha Volkov saved Viktor Thorne's life. She's the only reason he's still alive. If he finds out she's been keeping secrets from him, secrets about Aldric's last days, secrets about you. He will kill her. No matter what she's done for him. No matter what she means to him."

"And you're willing to risk that?"

"I'm willing to risk a lot of things. So are you. That's what this life is. Risk. Every choice. Every ally. Every secret." He picked up the silver coin and tucked it into his coat pocket, hissing through his teeth as the metal brushed his skin. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we find the doctor."

I lay on my cot and stared at the ceiling. Sleep wouldn't come. Too many questions. Too many faces. Aldric. Viktor. The man in the black suit. Sasha Volkov, the surgeon who held secrets in her hands and didn't know they might kill her.

Somewhere in the dark, Grey was keeping watch. Somewhere in the city, Viktor was waiting. Somewhere in a hospital on the north side, a woman who'd never met me held the key to everything I was.

And somewhere deep inside me, the wolf was growing stronger, patient as stone, hungry as fire, waiting for the moon to rise.