Page 34 of A Pack of Lies and a Big Bad Wolf

"The dance tonight," I say. "You're going. Stephen is going with you. Bram is your escort, and that's non-negotiable."

She stares at me. A hushbell seedling trembles in her grip.

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me."

"I did hear you, but my brain rejected it. Say it again."

"You're going to the dance tonight. With Stephen and Bram."

"Did Amaryllis drug you?"

“Do you want me to change my mind?”

"I'm going to the dance!" She announces this to the seedling first, and then to the greenhouse at large, and then she throws her arms around me, dirt and all, and squeezes with a force that surprises me from a girl her size. "I don't have anything to wear. Oh my God, I don't have anything to wear—"

"I'll handle it."

She pulls back and narrows her eyes. "You'll handle my dress."

"I'll handle your dress."

"You have terrible taste."

"Amaryllis and Peyton and Gemma will handle your dress,” I concede. “If it were me, I’d send you in a nun’s habit.”

The joy on her face flickers, and she gives me a look much older than seventeen. "You're going to have about fifty people there undercover watching me, aren't you?"

"Maybe.” I shrug.

She narrows her eyes at me, but then her smile bursts through. “I’m going to the dance!” she shrieks, spinning in a circle.

With a grin, I leave the greenhouse.

I call Peyton, who calls Gemma, who apparently calls half the pack, because by the time I get to Cedar Run there are four women at the only dress shop on Main Street with opinions so strong they could be classified as weapons. I stand in the corner and approve what they tell me to approve and pay for three dresses because they couldn't agree and Rose should have options.

The second thing takes longer, and I do it alone.

The library's second-floor hallway has a room at the end that's been storage since before I was Alpha — old furniture, broken equipment, things nobody cared enough to move or throw away. I clear it out myself. Desks and broken chairs down the back stairs for three hours, and the physical work is the first thing that's shut my wolf up in two days, so I take my time about it. Then I sweep the floor and wash the windows and stand in the doorway.

Good room. South-facing windows, natural light all day, big enough for a workbench along the wall and shelves for supplies. The doorframe is wide enough for the big press. The floorboards are old oak, and they've been hiding under junk for a decade.

I'm not going to move her tools, because moving a bookbinder's tools without permission is a killing offense, and I've committed enough crimes this week. But I can make the room ready, and I can put one thing in it.

I carry the herbal — the big illuminated one she's been washing and resewing for weeks, the one she called a crime scene because of the packing tape — and set it carefully on a table away from direct sunlight, and I put a note on top of it.

The note takes me four drafts. Every version sounds like either a legal filing or a hostage negotiation. Finally I settle on:

Your room. Stay and fill it.

I stare at the note. I think about a woman at a farmer's market, correcting my manners in front of my own pack. Civilized people say please, she told me, and I looked at her denim-blue eyes and thought, who is this lunatic, and my wolf said, that one, forever, and I've been fighting about it ever since.

I pick up the pen and add one more word.

Please.

— K