Season of the Wolf by Maria Vale – Spotlight and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Maria Vale who is celebrating the recent release of Season of the Wolf, book four in her The Legend of All Wolves series. Enter the Rafflecopter below to win a set of the first three books in the series.

In a world of danger and uncertainty, the Alpha can never let down her guard…

As Alpha of the Great North Pack, life is never easy for Evie Kitwanasdottir. The Pack has just survived a deadly attack, and Evie is determined to do whatever is necessary to preserve their safety—especially from the four Shifters who are now their prisoners.

Constantine lost his parents and his humanity on the same devastating day. He has been a thoughtless killer ever since. When Constantine is placed under Evie’s watchful eye, he discovers that taking directions and having a purpose are not the same thing.

Each moment spent together brings new revelations to Constantine, who begins to understand the loneliness of being Alpha. He finds strength and direction in helping Evie, but there is no room for a small love in the Pack, so Constantine will strive to prove to Evie he is capable of a love big enough for the Great North Pack itself.

Enjoy an Excerpt

“You know what I wished for on your eyelash?”

“My guard hair,” she reminds me. “No, you didn’t say.”

I take a deep breath and launch myself into the void. “I wanted to understand how wolves flirt.”

“Flirt?”

“It’s the things you say and do to show that you’re interested but want to pretend you aren’t in case the other person isn’t and you don’t want to be embarrassed.”

She scratches the tip of her nose with her thumb. “That’s why it’s one of the eight primary forms of human misrepresentation.”

“Misrepresentation? I wouldn’t call it misrepresentation. And there aren’t eight.”

“Yes there are,” she says and starts counting off on her fingers. “JAFFEWIP. It stands for Jokes. Advertisement. Falsehood. Flirtation. Exaggeration. White lies. Irony. Politics.” And as the last long finger rises in the air, I find myself unable to argue with a single one.

“Flirtation is only taught in Advanced Human Behaviors so that wolves heading Offland will understand how to interpret obscure signals.”

“What’s it like? The class.”

“I was never going to be an Offlander, so I have no idea.”

A squirrel runs through the branches overhead, loosing a sprinkling of duff. She picks up a branch of long, brown pine needles and twirls it between her fingers.

“Will you tell me?” she asks quietly.

Oh god.

The single light in the Great Hall goes off and I try to collect my thoughts.

“If you were human, Alpha, I would accidentally stand closer than strictly necessary with my back straight so you could see how tall I was. With my shoulders back so you could see how broad they are. I would smile at you, but not a friendly smile, more a smile verging on disdain, so that if you weren’t interested in my height or my shoulders, I would seem like I had never really cared in the first place.

“If you were interested, you wouldn’t say that straight out. Instead, you might ask me for help that you didn’t actually need, like opening a jam jar or working an app on your phone. I would help you with the thing you didn’t need with more flair and exertion than was required. Then with the jam jar opened or the app conquered, you might put your hand on my arm and say something about my strength or intelligence. I would then ask you where the nearest coffee shop is and you would say, ‘It’s easier if I just show you.’ When you’d shown me, I would insist on buying you a coffee. If you consented, we would have conducted a successful flirtation.”

She shakes her head, a small smile playing across her lips.

“But it’s all a lie.”

“Not a lie, a misrepresentation. As you said yourself.”

She waves her pine fan in front of her.

“When I asked for your help to swim like that, swim like you, did you think I was flirting?”

I know what she wanted. She wanted to find a place that was a little apart. Not run away, just float in the dark for the space of one breath, until some idiot thought it had gone on too long and rescued her, though she didn’t need it.

I shake my head.

“So how do wolves flirt?”

“It’s not all that different. At least until the hierarchy is settled, there are lots of feats of strength. Who drags the biggest windfall from the forest. Who kills the biggest bear. Who lifts the most bales of laundry. The usual. But then…” She leans toward me and I feel the warmth of her body behind me and stop breathing. The air moves behind my jaw, and when I suck in that breath again, the tight tip of her breast scrapes across my arm.

“That’s it,” she says quietly. “One wolf will smell another wolf to see if they are willing. That is how wolves flirt.”

When I turn my head, my cheek lines up to hers, and I suck in a deep breath. My brain is immediately awash with the almost indecipherable complexity of the Pack—black earth, fur, the blood of prey, the fast-running sap of summer trees. But then it settles on that something else underlying it all, the granite and moss, hard stone covered with fragile life, that is Evie.
“And am I?” I choke out.

“Yes,” she says, pulling away, her eyes shielded, voice suddenly distant. “But then every unattached male wants to cover the Alpha.”

***

Excerpted from Season of the Wolf by Maria Vale. © 2020 by Maria Vale. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author:Maria Vale
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.

Her first book, The Last Wolf, was chosen by Library Journal and Amazon as a Best Book of 2018 and was a Rita finalist in the Paranormal Romance and Best Debut categories.

Her second book, A Wolf Apart, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a Best Book of 2018, while Forever Wolf was chosen by Booklist and Kirkus as a Best Book of 2019.

Website | Pinterest| Instagram | Goodreads

Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Bookshop, or BAM.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Forever Wolf by Maria Vale – Spotlight and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Maria Vale who is celebrating the upcoming release of Forever Wolf. Enter the Rafflecopter at the end of the page for a chance to win a copy of The Last Wolf.

Born with one blue eye and one green, Eyulf was abandoned as an infant and has never understood why, or what he is…Varya is fiercely loyal to the Great North Pack, which took her in when she was a teenager. While out on patrol, Varya finds Eyulf wounded and starving and saves his life, at great risk to her own.

Legend says his eyes portend the end of the world…or perhaps, the beginning…

With old and new enemies threatening the Great North, Varya knows as soon as she sees his eyes that she must keep Eyulf hidden away from the superstitious wolves who would doom them both. Until the day they must fight to the death for the Pack’s survival, side by side and heart to heart…

Enjoy an Excerpt

“There were gunshots,” Eyulf says as I clean out the reopened wound with a rag dipped in the last of the Seagram’s. “They could have hurt you.”

“Still, you shouldn’t have followed me. You could have killed them. Turn over? Wolves don’t reveal themselves to humans, and they certainly don’t kill them unless it is a matter of the life or death.”

He turns onto his belly, and I start to pick out more embedded forest litter.

“But it was a matter of life or death,” he says. “They were shooting at you.”

“The life or death of the Pack. A single wolf means nothing.”

I pluck out several bits of fur. And a beetle wing.

“It does mean something. You mean something. You mean something to me.”

And small stones.

And a single pine needle. “I have to tell the Pack.”

“Are you listening to me?” He turns quickly, his hands on either side of my face.

“Your leg is—”

“Fine. My leg is fine. I could leave now and be no worse off. It’s what I do. A new place. Another page in my book. Except I would be worse off because now I know what’s here and what I want but don’t have.”

I stare down at the collection nested in my palm— stone, fur, wing, needle. Tesserae in the mosaic of the Great North. Of Homelands.

What have I done? Wolves are raised with uncompromising loyalty to Pack, to land and to our wild. Even our exiles would never betray our existence, but Eyulf was not raised like we are.

“You can’t tell anyone about the Pack.” My voice sounds panicked. Not at all like the Alpha command I’d intended. “You can’t—”

“I wasn’t talking about the Pack, Varya. That’s where your mind always goes, but not mine. I was talking about you.”

He bends down, looking me in the eye. How could anyone think his eyes were a curse? Blue and green. The promise of heaven and earth.

“I’m talking about you,” he says again.

He moves his hand to my hair and sweeps it back, touching my neck gently. He leans close. “You said before that another wolf’s mark had to be offered. That it meant they are responsible for each other. That they belong together. I want to belong. But not to the Pack. I want to belong to you.”

His thumb moves across my cheek and moves until his jaw almost touches mine, and then he stops. Waiting for me to say no or simply move away. I move closer, partly because I feel woozy and partly because this is what I want. I have only taken the Alpha’s mark, the mark that binds me to the entire Pack, but now…now I want this single scent, this single wolf, this single belonging.

Eyulf takes a deep breath and rubs his cheek along mine. “Is this how you do it?”

I feel everything: the coolness of his skin and the sharpness of his cheekbones and the cool eddy as he sucks in my scent and the warm current as he sighs.

Yes. That is how you do it. This—I turn my head so more of my skin touches his—this is how you do it.

He nuzzles closer, the damp softness of his lips against the spot where jaw joins neck, and I feel the promise of it all.

Then he whispers in my ear.

The weight is heavy on two legs, and the ground is uneven and cold and covered with rigid twigs that puncture and scrape my bare soles.

It’s good, I think. The distraction. Reminding me always of the harsh realities of Pack life. Surviving means strength to strength and power to power. It does not accommodate the coming together of two scarred and lonely wolves.

“Yours,” he said. “Mine.”

About the Author: 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 lives in New York with her husband, two sons and a long line of dead plants. No one will let her have a pet.

Website | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter
Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, BAM, or IndieBound.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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A Wolf Apart by Maria Vale – Spotlight and Giveaway


Long and Short Reviews welcomes Maria Vale who is celebrating the recent release of her newest book A Wolf Apart. Enter the Rafflecopter at the end of the post for a chance to win a copy of The Last Wolf. Also, see our review here!

Can a human truly make room in her heart for the Wild?

Thea Villalobos has long since given up trying to be what others expect of her. So in Elijah Sorensson she can see through the man of the world to a man who is passionate to the point of heartbreak. But something inside him is dying…

Elijah Sorensson has all kinds of outward success: bespoke suits, designer New York City apartment, women clamoring for his attention. Except Elijah despises the human life he’s forced to endure. He’s Alpha of his generation of the Great North Pack, and the wolf inside him will no longer be restrained…

Enjoy an Excerpt

“Here’s the truth. I didn’t do anything. The letter you wrote for Liebling? The one that you showed me in New York? It would have been just fine as it was. A change or two maybe to make it stronger. Our letterhead, sure. But it was fine as it was.”

“So why did you say it was more complicated?” The smell of coffee hits the back of my throat as she spoons the grounds into the filter.

“Because I wanted to see you again.”

She stops for a moment before screwing the lid back on and returning it to the cold box.

“That’s kind of pathetic.”

“I know. I’m not used to being pathetic, but there it is.”

A thin wisp of steam starts to curl up from the kettle.

“And why are you here now?”

“Same reason. I wanted to see you again, and after yesterday…I wasn’t sure you would.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have.” She raises her arm, stroking her cheek with the back of her hand. “Your skin is so soft,” she whispers, low and deep and urgent [imitating me]. “You should never wear anything but silk.”

If I weren’t so humiliated by the words, the sound of her voice would have made me come right there.

She grins and hands me the mug and a spoon.

“When you’re done with that, give it back.”

“What?”

“The spoon. I’ve only got one.”

She pours milk into the bowl in front of her and then coffee, and then taking the spoon from my hand, she swirls the clouds of milk through her bowl of coffee.

It is so terribly, achingly intimate.

There is, I realize, looking over the rim of my mug, only one of anything here. A single cup. A single bowl. A single small skillet. A single pot. A single chair. A single plate. A single towel hanging from the bathroom door.

The only thing that might accommodate more than one is the bed with its thick duvet and four pillows.

Doug wanted to expand Thea’s cabin. Install a refrigerator, a sofa, a TV. What did he say? “That’d be nice, right?” He wanted more. More noise, more stuff, more him.

But he missed the point of this place. Thea’s cabin isn’t just a shelter that could use modernizing and expanding; it’s a bulwark protecting her solitude. And no matter what he thought could be done, should be done, it would not be done, because there was no room here for more Doug or more of any man.

But…I am not any man. I am not a man at all. And as wolves, we understand what it is to be wordless. We understand the primal importance of silence.

She stirs distractedly, staring at the silence beyond the window.

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years,” she says, “give or take.”

“That’s a long time to be in the middle of nowhere. Do you ever get bored?”

“Bored? Never. I like the quiet. Helps me focus. For me, things get muddled when there are too many voices telling you what to do or how to be. Can I warm you up?”

You have got to be kidding me.

I glare down at the mountain ridge in my pants, pointing out that the only thing this woman with a steaming pot in her hand is offering to warm up is my coffee.

My…brain suddenly goes all curious about whether Doug is out of the picture. Because I don’t want him or anyone else offering to refill her.

“You don’t get lonely?”

“Sometimes. Not a big deal. Then I just make more effort to see friends. But most of the people I see need me. I like it. It feels more real than when someone’s squeezing you into their schedule, praying that you’ll cancel at the last minute.” She taps at the window with her finger, then wags the same finger. Even I, who am a creature of the forest, can’t see who she’s reprimanding. “Do you?” she asks. “Get lonely, I mean.”

“Me? Pffft. I see people all the time.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I think of all the clients I have spent time with, laughing and impressing and cajoling. And all the women I have spent time with, laughing and impressing and seducing. And in the end, have come home, vomited, and crawled into bed with a wolf-shaped hole in my chest.

“Yes. Sometimes.”

About the Author: Maria Vale is a journalist who has worked for Publishers Weekly, Glamour magazine, Redbook, and 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.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, or Kobo.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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The Last Wolf by Maria Vale – Guest Blog and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Maria Vale to celebrate the upcoming release of The Last Wolf, the first book in her The Legend of All Wolves series. Enter the Rafflecopter at the end of the post for a chance to win a copy of the book.

Dear (Potential) Reader,

There is so much vying for your attention, I’m grateful you’ve read even this far.

I know I’m asking a lot from you.

I’m asking you to take time with a new writer when there are so many great ones already out there.

I’m asking you to take a chance on a new direction in a well-loved genre, in which the wolf is not a vicious beast to be subjugated and feared, but rather the human form is a useful tool for protecting the wilder self.

In this reworking, werewolves fall into two categories: Pack, who must be wolves for three days out of every thirty—self-aware wolves, but not magic, any bullet can kill them. And Shifters, who don’t have to change and so remain human, the apex predator, rather than wolf, the maligned and despised outsider.

Still like any romance, its foundation is in the growing love between two characters: the worldly half-Shifter Tiberius who hates the wolf inside him as bestial and monstrous. And the unworldly Silver, who is fully Pack and believes her wild self to be sacred.

Silver is a runt with a displaced hip when she is a wolf and in a society that determines position by fighting wild, this means she is at the bottom of the hierarchy—the last wolf. Tiberius, however, discovers real strength in her perseverance and fierceness. For her part, Silver recognizes something about him: that by denying his wild, Tiberius has sown the roots of despair.

But this is not only a love story between two people, it’s also a love story about the Great North Pack, because despite our fascination with lone wolves, it is the pack that really defines this most social of all animals.

I imagined the Great North as something beyond family or community, something tight- knit and loving and brave and frightened. And intensely vulnerable. I imagined, like most embattled societies, the pack would be very conservative, with a traditional culture, a history, a language that was part of its identity. I chose to base that culture loosely (very loosely) on the world of 9th century England, partly because I love the sound of the language of Beowulf. To me, it is gruff and beautiful and haunting, like a wolf’s howl. But also because 9th century England was a place of great insecurity. One never knew when Northmen might show up and destroy everything you loved.

It was the Great North’s first Alpha, Ælfrida, who forced her pack to change. With humans decimating the forests of England, she dragged her pack from the Old World to the vast forests of northern New York, she re-wrote laws in order to allow new wolves to join their bloodlines, she forced her wolves to leave their isolated territories, so that they could learn human ways and protect the Pack using human law.

What results is a society that is both human and decidedly not, both harsh and loving, severe and tender. The way I imagined wolves fighting daily for their lives would be.

I have loved every minute of researching and writing these books. I can only hope that you will enjoy reading them.
Stay wild,
Maria

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…

Enjoy an Excerpt

The day of the first waxing crescent of fall is when all of the wolves who live on the Homelands traditionally run the perimeter and make sure that our land is properly marked before the ground freezes and damaged posts become hard to replace.
The entire Pack is wild. Barking and wagging tails, they lick each other and jump around each other, their ferocious jaws open and gentle. They chase mice through windrows, their hind legs scratching leaves into a brightly colored explosion high in the air, so that the pups can twist and turn and catch them in snapping teeth as they spiral down.

Not me. I have to pull on heavy muck boots over thick socks with jeans shoved inside. And I won’t mark our territory the way wolves are supposed to. I will mark it on an iPhone 6 Plus, crammed into the big pocket of a thick orange vest. All because Ti refuses to phase and John doesn’t like it.

“He tells himself he’s human,” John says. “But if he lies to himself, what makes you think he’s not going to lie to us?”
So because I am Ti’s schildere, I have to stay in skin too. Keep an eye on him.

“I mean, what were you thinking?” I ask as Ti fits the Outlast cap over his clipped skull. “When you came to a bunch of wolves asking for protection. That you’d just keep on being a human? Was that your grand plan?”

“I didn’t have a grand plan. What I had was a hole in my stomach, a vague set of directions to my mother’s pack, and a need to survive. I changed long enough to fight; I never thought you’d be asking me to give up my humanity.”

“No one’s asking you to give up your humanity, but if you refuse to admit what you are, it is going to rise up and bite you in the ass.”

“Well, how about you?”

“Me? I love changing. I—”

“I know you love changing. You do it all the time. The second Sten doesn’t need your thumbs, you evaporate, and there’s nothing left but clothes hanging from a branch. I may be a crappy wolf. But you… You’re a crappy human.”

I cringe, because he’s right. I’ve never been happy in skin, but then those stupid fire fairies burrowed into my body all those days ago, and that spark has caught fire and burns so fierce that now when I walk beside him and hear his quiet, low voice or look into those gold-flecked black eyes, my tendons strain and my muscles coil and my lungs open up and my blood beats hot and fast. The only way I know how to deal with need is to run hard and far until I collapse, unable to feel anything at all.

A brindle pup barks worriedly at my feet. All of the other wolves have disappeared, fading like a whisper in the woods.

“I know, Leelee. We’re coming.”

“She’s going with us?” Ti asks.

“We’re supposed to take her along. Help her learn the farther reaches of the Homelands.” Leelee scampers on ahead, leaping awkwardly over a huge downed log and sliding down the other side, her fur covered in the sooty brown decay.

Ti clears it in one stride and stands close, not helping me exactly, but I know if I falter, his big shoulder is there for me to grab on to. I make it by myself, but I appreciate his silent gesture.

Leelee watches, her head cocked to the side, as I take a running jump over one of the numerous small, mucky streams that crisscross our land. I slip down the other side, my foot sinking into a soft bruise in the moss. She yips and worries, waiting for me to pull my boot out with a dull sucking sound.

I lift her up and give her an open-jawed kiss on her ear, but she sees a squirrel and won’t stop squirming until I set her down.

“No farther than the Stones, Leelee.”

When we finally catch up, she’s clambering over the variously sized rocks that form rough circles around the ancient central stones. Over the years, the circle has encroached farther and farther into the forest, surrounding the trees.

Leelee marks one of the stones.

“What is this?” Ti asks.

“It’s, um…the Gemyndstow? The memory place? But we just call it the Stones.”

“Like a graveyard?”

“Graveyards are for bodies, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So, no. Coyotes eat our dead. That’s why we call them wulfbyrgenna. Wolf tombs. The stones are only for wolf names and the date of their last hunt so that we can remember.”

When Ti crouches down and looks at one near the front, Leelee runs up to him and looks too, trying to figure out why it is so interesting.

As soon as he stands, she marks that one too.

An ill-advised squirrel runs across the outer rim of the Stones, and Leelee turns quickly to run after it, the wind tickling her fur and the scent in her nose. I know that feeling of taking it all in—moldering pine needles, owl pellets, borer beetle, tree sap, two-year-old porcupine den, sassafras bush—until the scent of prey hits you right in the back of the throat and everything tenses and you chase, even if your tummy’s little and full and all you really want is for the thing, whatever it is, to escape so you don’t have to eat it, but still you can’t help but hunt.

She peels off after her squirrel, looking behind to make sure we’re watching.

The squirrel chitters at her from the safety of a maple. Ti stares, his hands fisted by his sides, as Leelee scampers and bounds and falls on her back and twists her little legs in the air, her belly dotted with leaf litter. A tiny furrow cuts through his usually impassive brow, and his mouth, while still tightly closed, turns down a little at the corners. His wild—that seductive scent of crushed bone and evergreen—radiates thicker now, and when I touch his arm, he jolts as if from a waking dream and blinks down at me, looking in this moment like a lost boy.

About the Author:Maria Vale 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.

Website

Pre-order the book at Amazon, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Chapters, iBooks, or Indiebound.

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The Last Wolf by Maria Vale – Spotlight and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Maria Vale who is visiting with us and sharing some early excerpts from The Last Wolf, the first book in her The Legend of All Wolves series, which will be released in February. Maria is giving away 2 advance copies of The Last Wolf and 2 posters – enter at the end of the post.

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…

Enjoy an Excerpt

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.

About the Author:
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.

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