Title: The Last Wolf
Author: Maria Vale
Series: The Legend of All Wolves #1
Pub Date: February 6, 2018
ISBN: 9781492661870
For three days out of thirty, when
the moon is full and her law is iron, the Great North Pack must be wild.
If she returns to her Pack, the
stranger will die.
But if she stays…
Silver
Nilsdottir is at the bottom of her Pack’s social order, with little chance for
a decent mate and a better life. Until the day a stranger stumbles into their
territory, wounded and beaten, and Silver decides to risk everything on
Tiberius Leveraux. But Tiberius isn’t all he seems, and in the fragile balance
of the Pack and wild, he may tip the destiny of all wolves…
Buy Links:
2 advance copies of The Last Wolf and 2 posters
In which Tiberius
eats dinner with the hostile Pack and learns that not everything that is small
and cute and furry is a puppy
Upstairs,
the screen door opens and closes with a slam. Orders are barked out, and heavy
treads stomp back and forth between hall and kitchen. As the Pack passes the
stairs to the basement, the complex fragrances of the dishes they’re carrying
waft down to us. Benches start scraping across floors, and I push Ti’s extra
clothes into a bag and push the man himself up the stairs.
As
soon as we reach the hall, the smile I hadn’t even known I was wearing fades.
The Alphas of every echelon are standing around the heavy hand-scraped tables,
each one of them holding tight onto their seaxs, the sharp daggers that all
adult Pack wear at their waist.
There
are strict penalties for attacking a table guest, and John will kill anyone who
tries, but edgy wolves are edgy wolves and not always in control. I am this
man’s shielder, and I face them, my thighs coiled low, my shoulders squared,
and my lips curled back from my teeth, so these wolves know that I will fight,
even in skin.
Tock,
tock, tock.
Behind
me, Ti is not even facing the right way. He’s looking at the table, opening up
casseroles with one hand, while flicking his spoon up and down against his bowl
with the thumb of the other (tock, tock, tock). As though there weren’t
a hundred evil-eyed wolves staring holes into his back.
He
lifts a hand-thrown lid and sniffs the saag paneer. Another basket with bread.
A selection of Corningware casseroles hold cauliflower and lentil stew;
sun-dried tomatoes and fresh cheese; corn chowder. Pasta with herbs. Egg salad.
“So…you’re
vegetarians?” Ti says to no one in particular.
“Not
vegetarians,” John answers. “But not carrion eaters either. You are our
guest,” he says loudly to remind all the wolves with itchy palms about our
very ancient and very strict rules of hospitality, “and free to hunt anywhere
on our land, but Shifter? You must eat what you kill.”
“John?”
I whisper, pulling at his elbow, and he bends down. “His name?”
John
scratches his graying beard for a moment before pointing to one casserole dish
in Blue Onion pattern. “Tiberius?” he says, “My personal favorite is the
cauliflower and lentils. Be sure to add some toasted hazelnuts.”
Someone
coughs, but John has broken the spell, and the Alphas reclaim their seats.
Though when they do, they seem to have doubled in size, their broad shoulders
and thighs now claiming whatever spare space we might have squeezed into.
I
bend my head toward one of the empty tables. Those too will be full when the
Offlanders come home for the Iron Moon, but for now, we sit there alone, side
by side. The Pack starts talking again, bent low over their food because our
table manners at home are not all they should be.
Naturally,
there is a lot of talk about Ti, and while no one will question John’s
decision, it is one of the peculiarities of the Old Tongue that the word giest
means guest and stranger and enemy, so when someone speaks of our new giest,
everyone understands the double meaning.
Then
John says that’s enough Old Tongue for now.
A
handful of pups scrabble up the stairs from the basement storage. They’re
chasing something, taking wide frantic turns around the room.
“Mouse,”
I whisper to Ti. “They don’t last long here.”
“She
didn’t take me down,” Eudemos complains loudly.
“I
mean, I was still standing.” He hacks at the big loaf of bread with his seax.
“Where’sa butter?
“I
neber submided,” he insists, a pale-yellow crumb flying across the table. He
uses his thumb to push the mouthful back in. “If what she did counts as
submitting now, I think we should change the laws, thass all I’m sayin’.”
“Deemer?”
says John.
Victor,
our Deemer, our thinker about Pack law, crosses his arms and looks at the
ceiling for a moment. “The law does say an opponent must be pinned down,” he
says. “But while Eudemos was not down, he was very definitely pinned, and that
is the more important part of the law.”
“Your
Alpha agrees. The spirit of the law was upheld.”
And
with that, Eudemos will not say another word about the matter.
The
mouse finally caught, Golan trots up to John, followed by a roiling mass of
fur. He lays his tiny prey at the Alpha’s feet. John looks at it, making sure
the kill was clean and the mouse didn’t suffer, then he scratches Golan’s ear
and wishes him good eating.
Suddenly,
Ti jumps and lowers his hand to fend off a juvenile, who has her damp nose in
his crotch.
“Rainy!”
shouts Gran Moira. “Come here!”
Rainy
cocks her head to the side and stares up at Ti before running off.
“Why
do you have so many dogs?” Ti asks, his legs now tightly crossed.
“Nooo,”
I hiss. “They’re not…” It’s too late. He didn’t say it
loudly, but our hearing is very good, and one set of very good ears is all
that’s needed. One by one, the Pack falls silent, appalled by what Ti has
called our children.
Four
fuzzy snouts peek over the arm of one of the fireplace sofas. Other pups glower
down from the curved stairs that lead up to the children’s quarters.
Then
the only sound is the brittle crunch of Golan’s sharp, white teeth.
“Excuse
me, Shifter?” pipes a small voice. A ten-year-old girl with long, pale-brown
curls, wearing shorts and a much-washed blue T-shirt with a picture of a pickle
on it, scratches the back of her calf with a bare foot. “I am sorry I smelled
your crutch?” she says, glancing back at Gran Moira, who mouths the word crotch
with an encouraging smile. “But that’s what I said. ‘Crutch.’”
“It’s
‘crotch,’” corrects Gran Moira.
“Oh,”
Rainy says, turning back to Ti. “I am sorry I smelled your crotch? I didn’t
mean to be offensive. I am just in the Year of First Shoes?”
The
Year of First Shoes is the first twelve moons in the juvenile wing, when you’re
too old to scamper around and be fed tidbits from the table, and you’re too
young to see even the remotest advantage to being human. It’s when we first
wear shoes and clothes.
It is a terrible,
terrible time.
Maria Vale is a journalist who has worked for Publishers Weekly, Glamour magazine, Redbook, the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a logophile and a bibliovore and a worrier about the world. Trained as a medievalist, she tries to shoehorn the language of Beowulf into things that don't really need it. She currently lives in New York with her husband, two sons and a long line of dead plants. No one will let her have a pet. Visit her at https://www.mariavale.com/.
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