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

pardon my bluntness, is not considered to be a strong leader. Her acceptance of Ray, her allowing him and his cloddish sons to throw their weight around—”
    I cracked a laugh. “Sorry. That's what we’ve always called them, Luke and me. The clods.”
    Gray Fox leaned toward me for emphasis. “The line depends on your mother's successor. We all look to you. Grow quickly, grow strong. Be wise. It may be sooner than you think before everything depends on you.”
    Tears pricked my eyes, so I looked away. I couldn’t figure out why his words made me so angry. They were true, of course they were true. But something was wrong about how he said them, or why. Or that he brought it up now.
    “I have to report back,” he was saying. “But, thanks to the way in which you escaped, I have a lot of ground to cover before I must do that.” He smiled at me. “One would not want to leave any trail unchecked, for where you might have gone, or what you might be doing. That would leave my report incomplete, after all.”
    I almost smiled back. “I need a year. I will be eighteen a year from August. I need until then.”
    “I can’t give you that long,” he said, his voice filled with regret. “I’ll need to bring back word before the Gathering.”
    I nodded. I had until the fall, then. Unless he was lying. Why did I feel that he was lying?
    He checked the teapot, then rose, gathered it up together with my cup and his, and said, “I’ll make more tea. You look like you could use some.”
    He went into the cabin before I could figure out a polite way to tell him I didn’t much like his tea. It had a strangely bitter aftertaste for something with so little flavor. I thought in a moment I would get up and go after him, just to get a look inside the cabin. I wanted to go in and sniff my way around, to find out what I could about what had happened to Marge and Andy. If their dead bodies were rotting inside the door, I could certainly smell that from here, even in my human form. As a wolf, I could sort out all the old traces of their comings and goings, from the last time they left. I might also be able to tell if they were frightened when they went. I could tell which way they went. I could check the stone by the path, and find out who obliterated the wards, and smeared out the signs.
    I badly wanted to know all that, but I realized, looking after Gray Fox, that I very much didn’t want to change in front of him. I didn’t want him to see how badly wounded I was. If he’d watched me come up the trail, and I assumed he had, then he’d seen me limping on two legs. I wouldn’t let him see me limp on four. I was forming some plan of how to find out all I wanted to know, that became entwined at the back of my eyes with the Celtic knotwork that connected the three signs on the stone by the path. With a start I sat up and opened my eyes. Gray Fox sat across from me, pouring the tea. He smiled. “Here. This will help.” His smile looked smug.
    I didn’t need to change to my wolf form to know that he had touched me. He’d checked my pockets, moved my keys. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want him to know that I knew. I cleared my throat and said, “What will you do now?”
    He laughed. “Don’t you know better than to ask the Fox his business?”
    Ask the Fox a question and he will waste your time . “I told you, I’ll ask you whatever I want.”
    “Very well. Amber. I will be here for awhile. I have several scouts out, who will report to me here. If you need anything, come and see me. I’ll do whatever I can.”
    “You’re staying in the cabin?”
    He shrugged. “It's convenient. It has a few wards. The nearest neighbors are…” he lifted his nose, “a quarter mile away.”
    I didn’t drink any more of his tea. I got up to take my plate into the cabin, thinking I could at least get a look inside that way. I headed for the door.
    “Leave that,” he said, not quite sharply. I turned and looked at him, and he lifted