Page 72 of The Ashpaw: Part One

Fern swallowed. She was quite pathetic, wasn’t she?

Indeed, her wolf scoffed. You couldn’t even find water.

“You have a point.”

He led her back to the road, where a horse was waiting patiently, grazing on some green shoots.

After helping her up on the saddle, he mounted the horse in front of her. “Hold on now. Wouldn’t want you to fall off.”

If only, she thought.

Instead she wrapped her arms around his chest, resting her cheek on his broad back and breathing him in. He smelled good, like leather and spice.

He patted her hand once, and then they were off.

* * *

“I’m disappointed to see you in front of the Council again so soon,” Alastair began.

And so was she, although it wasn’t quite the same Council as it had been the night before.

For tonight, a new alpha had joined them—Kyntha’s cousin from the Ironcoat Clan.

Reinn sat with one leg crossed over the other, his lazy posture and bored expression giving the impression he didn’t quite want to be there. Moon-pale hair spilled past his shoulders in a silken sheet over dark clothes and a heavy fur stole that hung loosely from one shoulder, while warm amber eyes watched the room from beneath silver lashes, blinking slowly.

Fern said nothing, her cheeks red and eyes trained on the floor in front of her, hands wringing themselves into knots.

“I would argue her last appearance wasn’t her fault,” Karn added, and Alastair bobbed his head in acquiescence.

“Nevertheless, you have been found guilty of clan abandonment. Darion, as the alpha who bound her, the punishment is yours to decide.”

But before he could even speak, Darion’s eyes aflame and rage burning under his skin, Alastair added, “One sanctioned and approved for the crime.”

Darion rose, rounding the table to face her directly.

He opened his mouth to deliver his sentence, when another voice spoke.

“Why did you run, little sunbeam?”

Everyone, including Fern, turned to face Reinn, his eyes fixed where she stood.

Darion replied, “It doesn’t matter—”

“It does to me,” Reinn said, causing Darion to bristle from the casual interruption. “My cousin is marrying into this clan, and if a delectable little she-wolf like this would risk escape, I’d like to know why.”

Darion exhaled sharply, his teeth grinding. “She ran because—”

“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her.”

Fern’s heart raced, and she looked at Darion, waiting for permission, instruction, anything…

But his eyes told her nothing except of his building anger.

“It’s alright, Fern,” Eidan said. “You can speak freely.”

She highly doubted that, especially since speaking freely—no, emoting freely—had been what turned Darion against her in the first place.

“Because I am a failure,” she replied, not bothering to see if her answer had pleased Darion.