Free Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga by Carol Wolf

a scent trail out that way, to obscure mine, when I’d stupidly blundered onto Gray Fox's scent marker. I hoped that my chewing kept him from seeing any reaction I might have made.
    “You’re hurt?” he asked.
    “‘S’nothing,” I said. “Just a hunting accident.” I grinned at him, and he obligingly grinned back. He had a lot of teeth.
    “How's Luke?” I asked. My younger brother, the only one of us left at home. My older brother, Carl, disappeared when my dad did.
    “He's surviving,” Gray Fox said lightly.
    I felt a wave of guilt. Since my mother brought home Ray, as our new stepfather, I’d been Luke's protector. I realized on the heels of that wave of feeling, that Gray Fox meant me to feel guilt, just by the way he’d answered me. My attention rose a few more notches. Then I tamped it down. He could read focus, any hunter can read focus. And this conversation was, I realized too, another kind of hunt.
    So I didn’t ask him what he was going to do, now that he’d found me. I asked him, instead, something I wanted to know.
    “Where is my dad?”
    He smiled, lifted a hand. “Please, Lady. Don’t ask me questions you know I’m not allowed to answer.”
    “I go by Amber here.”
    “Very well. Amber.”
    “And I will ask you anything I damn well please.”
    For just a second he was taken aback. Great, something that wasn’t in his script. Then he bent his head to me. “As you wish, L—Amber.” He showed his teeth for a moment as he replied. “You will excuse me if I don’t always answer you.”
    I nodded, as though it wasn’t a big deal. As though this wasn’t a kind of battle.
    “Are you staying long?”
    That brought a smile. “Lady, we have been hunting you for six months.”
    “You have a message for me?”
    “Of course.” He opened his hands. He wasn’t eating anything, I noticed. I wondered if I should have surreptitiously sniffed the food more carefully, to see if he’d doctored it. That would be a point to him, though. “‘Come home.’” His eyes glinted. “‘Now.’”
    I put my sandwich down. This was serious. “Okay,” I asked. “Who sent you? My mother?”
    He looked at me gravely for a moment, and shook his head. “Ray sent us. All the fox kind. He wants you back.” He grinned, showing his teeth. “Right now.”
    I grinned back, but I was lying. I wondered if he was. I didn’t ask him what my mom said, because I didn’t want him to tell me. My mother is the Moon Wolf, Lady of the Wolf Kind, and I am her Daughter. Disobeying a direct summons from her, well, that was something I wanted to avoid.
    “Ray wants you back,” he continued, turning his mug in his hands, “because by the time of the next Gathering he must be seen to be in control.”
    I nodded. It didn’t take much figuring to know that.
    “The Rapsons have left the valley,” he continued.
    I raised my brows.
    “The Shorburns went last month. The Ipsitts are selling up.” He sipped his tea, watching me. “And your cousin Claire left about the same time you did.”
    “Did she?” I sipped my tea, too.
    “Yes,” he smiled. “She did.” He put his cup down and opened his hands. “I must tell you, Lady—Amber, I don’t like Ray's sudden appearance, his faction, nor his influence any more than you do.”
    I studied the dregs of my tea. It was not possible that this was true. Gray Fox had not lived in Ray's house. He had not been a girl who Ray and his sons believed needed to be taught a lesson. Needed to be taught her place. Needed to be taught this as often as necessary. There was no one who wanted Ray gone, who wanted him dead, more than I did. And his sons with him. When I lifted my head, Gray Fox almost started back. My eyes had gone gold. “Oh,” I said, “I’m not so sure about that.”
    He nodded understanding.
    “If you try to take me back there now, I will fight you.”
    He shook his head. “But, Lady, have you considered what your absence means to your family? Your mother,