“This isn’t a good thing to talk about over the phone,” Merri Lee finally said.
For a moment, Meg couldn’t think, could barely breathe as a drawing of a cow with arrows pointing to the various cuts of meat popped into her head. Then she imagined a drawing of a human with the same kinds of arrows. Could there be a sign like that in the butcher shop?
“Merri? Does the butcher shop in the Courtyard sell people parts?”
Silence.
“Oh, gods.”
After another silence, Merri Lee said, “I’m pretty sure the special meat isn’t sold in the butcher shop anymore, if it ever was,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And I’m pretty sure when the Others kill a human, that person is usually consumed on the spot and there aren’t any leftovers.” She swallowed hard enough that Meg could hear it over the phone. “But when special meat
is
available, you’ll see a sign on the shop door. It’s not obvious what it’s for, but we’ve all been able to guess why it goes up. Like I said, I’m pretty sure they don’t sell the meat there, but the sign tells all the Others that it’s available.”
“But we’re supposed to shop there!”
“Have you been inside yet?”
“No. I don’t know how to cook, so I haven’t bought any meat there yet.” And might never buy any.
“When you do, be sure to ask what meat you’re getting. Or tell them what you’re looking for. If you ask for a steak and don’t specify the animal, you could get beef or horse or deer or moose or even bison. That can be interesting, but you don’t always want interesting.”
Feeling wobbly, Meg braced a hand on the counter and wished she’d never thought of getting a treat for Sam. “Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Okay. Thanks, Merri.”
She hung up and went back into the sorting room in time to hear a loud knock on the back door. Sam followed her, still wearing the harness and leash because he wouldn’t let her unclip the safety line.
She opened the door. The man had the brown hair and eyes of the Hawks she’d met, and he was wearing a blood-smeared apron around his waist. He held out two packages wrapped in brown paper.
“Chopped up a few pieces of stew beef,” he said. “Let it get body warm before you give it to Sam. The other package has pieces of dried stag stick. The pups like chewing on those.”
“What’s a stag stick?” Meg asked, taking the packages.
He stared at her for a moment. Then he put a fist below his belt and popped out a thumb.
“Oh,” Meg said.
“Oh.”
He spun around and ran back to the Market Square.
She closed the door, looked at the packages in her hands, and said, “Eeewwww.”
But Sam was bouncing all around her, dancing on his hind legs to sniff at the packages.
The first package she opened had the beef. Figuring she could warm it in the wave-cooker, she put that package in the little fridge. The next package held three pieces of . . . stag. Using thumb and forefinger, she picked up a piece and gave it to Sam. Then she hurriedly wrapped up the rest and ran to the bathroom to wash her hands. Twice.
Of course, he wouldn’t stay in the back room with his chewy, so she began sorting the mail while she studiously ignored what Sam was holding between his paws and gnawing with such pleasure.
Vlad looked up from the invoices he was sorting and studied the Wolf in the doorway. “Something wrong?”
Blair came in and took a seat on the other side of the desk. “Boone says he’s not going to store special meat in the shop anymore because he doesn’t want to get into trouble with Henry now and with Simon when the Wolfgard returns.”
“Why is Boone worried about getting into trouble?”
“Because Meg asked if he had any special meat.”
Vlad’s mouth fell open.
“Meg?”
“Boone says he’ll get in trouble if he doesn’t sell it to her when she asks for it, but he’ll get into more trouble if she buys some and
then
finds out what it is. He can’t sell what he doesn’t have, so he’s not going to have it.”
“Meg?”
Vlad said again. He couldn’t decide if he was intrigued or disturbed by this information.
“Turns out she was looking for a treat for Sam.” Blair’s lips twitched in a hint of a smile. “From the sounds he was making when he called me, I’m guessing the Hawk is going to stress molt a few feathers before the day is done.”
Vlad laughed out loud.
Blair pushed out of the chair. “Course, he also brought pieces of a stag stick for Sam.”
“Stop,” Vlad pleaded, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “No, wait. Did Meg know what it was?”
“She does now. I did tell Boone he should continue delivering a little meat for Sam.” A pause. “Simon called. He’ll be back on Windsday.”
Still trying to catch his breath, Vlad waved a hand to acknowledge he’d heard.
“Doesn’t sound like he got any answers,” Blair said.
Sobering, Vlad nodded. “We’ll all talk when he gets back.” Once Blair left the office and he was sure the Wolf was out of hearing, he added, “About a lot of things.”
Meg stared at the back door of Howling Good Reads. Bringing a Wolf into the store wasn’t a problem; she’d heard that one or two Others were usually in animal form to provide store security. No, the problem was how they would react to Sam’s harness and leash—and whether she would be breaking some unspoken rule by bringing a young
terra indigene
into a store frequented by humans.
Leaving Sam in the office had not been an option after she considered how much trouble he could get into on his own. So here she was, dithering at the door.
The wooden gate at the back of Henry’s yard opened. The Beargard studied both of them for a long moment before he looked at HGR’s back door. Stepping up to her, he took the leash.
“Come on, Sam. You play with me for a while. The sooner Meg takes care of her chores, the sooner you can both eat.”
This was Henry, and Sam would be safe with the Grizzly, but Meg didn’t feel easy about other people holding the leash and having control over Sam, and she especially didn’t like the pup accepting that other people
could
hold the leash.
Her uneasiness must have shown on her face, because Henry said, “We’ll be fine, Meg. Do your chores.”
She looked at Sam. “It would be better if you stayed with Henry. Okay?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She went into HGR and hurried through the stockroom. But she didn’t make it into the public part of the store before she heard that squeaky-door howl—Sam’s protest at being left behind.
Already feeling guilty about leaving him, she let out her own squeak when Sam’s howl was answered by a deeper howl somewhere in the store. She hesitated. Then curiosity pushed her into the store proper.
Maybe she would see her first grown Wolf
.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one engaged in Wolf spotting after hearing that howl. All the customers she passed were looking for something that wasn’t on the shelves, but she reached the front of the store without seeing one of the
terra indigene
in Wolf form. She did find John Wolfgard, who took her to the children’s section. He seemed too cheerful to be a Wolf, and she wondered if customers who dealt with him were relieved or disappointed by that.
Called away by another customer, he left her browsing the picture books and “this is” books. She chose a couple of the “this is” books and a book of children’s stories. Not sure how long she’d been browsing, and wanting a chance to look for a book for herself, she hurried out of the children’s section and headed for the front of the store where she’d seen a display of books, and almost ran into the man blocking the way.
He was about Simon’s age, with a lean face and body, but his hair was a blend of gray and black, and his gray eyes held the least illusion of humanity of any shifter she’d seen in the Courtyard so far. He wore jeans, a white sweater, and a scarred, black leather jacket. There was no doubt in her mind that he was the Wolf who had answered Sam’s howl.
He didn’t move out of the way so much as shift position enough for her to squeeze past him. When she did, he leaned in and sniffed her with no subtlety whatsoever. Then he sneezed.
Meg didn’t bother to sigh about another Wolf who was going to complain about her stinky hair—which didn’t smell anymore, thank you very much.
Even John’s smile faltered when he noticed how the other Wolf followed her to the front of the store, but he rang up her purchases—including a novel that she grabbed from the display table to prove she could buy a book for herself—and put them in the carry bag she’d brought with her.
Thanking John, she headed toward the back of the store, more and more nervous about the Wolf who seemed intent on following her. She breathed a sigh of relief when he hesitated, then turned and went into A Little Bite. Wanting to get back to the office before he began following her again, she flung open the back door of HGR and hurried to the open door of Henry’s yard.
A snowball hit her shoulder, surprising a squeak out of her. But it was the Wolf charging at her that made her scream so loud the Crows and Hawks that were all around Henry’s yard and the Liaison’s Office took off in a flurry of wings. Meg dropped to her hands and knees, then curled up, covering her head and neck with her arms.
The Wolf landed on her back, snarling fiercely as he slid off her in his attempt to grab at her arms.
Then a small head shoved its way under her arm, and a tongue gave her face a couple of quick licks. Sam talked at her for a moment before he pulled his head out of the space and happily jumped on her again.
Henry’s laugh boomed out. “You caught her good and proper, Sam. Now let her up.”
Meg counted to ten. When no one jumped on her, she slowly uncurled. A moment later, a big hand grabbed the back of her coat, hauled her upright, and began whacking the snow off her.
“You make a fine squeaky toy, Meg,” Henry said, his voice suffused with laughter. “Sam, it’s time for you to go.”
“That’s enough,” she gasped, brushing the snow off the front of her coat.
Henry picked up her purse and the carry bag, brushing the snow off both of them. “It was nice of you to play at being prey.”
She hadn’t been playing at anything. The red harness or the size of the animal hadn’t registered in her brain. All she’d seen was a Wolf heading toward her at a full run. Sam had looked a lot bigger in that moment, and dropping to the ground had been instinctive.
“I probably should have run,” she murmured, taking the purse and carry bag from Henry. Sam returned, mouthing one end of the leash as he dragged it behind him.
“No,” Henry said quietly, his attention on something behind her. “Running would have been the wrong thing to do.”
Taking the leash from Sam, she clipped it to his harness and slipped the other end over her wrist before turning to look at whatever Henry was watching.
The Wolf who had followed her in HGR was standing nearby, holding one of the insulated lunch boxes Tess used to deliver food or coffee to people working in the Market Square. He stared at her with a fury that bordered on crazed hatred.
“What do you want, Ferus?” Henry asked.
It was Sam, standing between her feet and snarling at the other Wolf, that finally pulled Ferus’s attention away from her. But not for long. He couldn’t seem to tear his focus away from the harness and leash that attached Sam to a human.
“Ferus.”
Henry’s voice was both command and warning.
“Tess asked me to carry this for the
Liaison
,” Ferus said, the words almost lost in the growling voice.
“You should go now,” Henry said to Meg, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll need to open up for afternoon deliveries soon.” He gave her a little push toward the office.
“Come on, Sam,” Meg said, too scared now to do more than whisper.
All the way back to the office, Sam ran to the end of the leash, then stopped and kept watch until she caught up to him. And all the way back, Ferus trailed behind them, a silent threat.
Memory. A movie clip showing a pack of ordinary wolves pulling down a deer. Beginning to feed before the deer was dead. Ripping. Tearing. Gorging on fresh meat.
They had watched that same clip for an entire afternoon because one of the girls had fought against being cut, and the resulting prophecy had been of inferior quality. And while the girls watched the clip, the Walking Names had whispered over and over, “That could be you. If we ever stop taking care of you, that is what the wolves will do to you.”
They took care of property, not people. Willing to risk her life in order to have a life, she had run and had ended up in a Courtyard, hiding among beings who were even more dangerous than the man who saw her as nothing but a living tool. Despite Simon snarling at her about one thing or another and always threatening to eat her because she had done something he didn’t like, and despite the conditioned fear of the Others the Walking Names had tried to instill in her, she hadn’t thought of herself as prey. Until now.
She didn’t need to cut skin to know that was exactly how Ferus saw her. To him, human equaled prey, equaled meat. She didn’t need the razor to know it wasn’t a question of
if
he would pull her down and rip her open like the deer she had seen in that movie clip; it was a question of
when.
She had been so busy building a life here, she had forgotten the other part of her personal vision. She was going to die in this Courtyard.
But she’d also seen herself in that narrow bed, and Simon pacing in that white room. How could she be there if the Wolves tore her apart?
Sam yipped, and she realized they had reached the office’s back door. Her hands shook as she struggled to get the key in the lock.
Once she had the door open and Sam had darted inside, she dared to look at the other Wolf
.
“Thank you for carrying the lunch.”
He just stared at her. Then he held out the lunch box.
Taking it, she backed inside the office and closed the door—and almost wet herself when the furious howl sounded from the other side of the door.
Panting in her effort to breathe, she set all the bags on the small table and ignored the snow she was tracking on the floor. Slipping the leash off her wrist and stripping off her coat, she went into the bathroom, shutting the door before Sam could follow her.