**Chapter 11** **The Butcher's Human**

Neither of us moved.

His hand stayed on top of mine. It was big and warm and rough, and it was shaking. I could feel every small tremble in his fingers. The car rolled on down the road, and the pine trees went past the windows, and inside that car the whole world had gone quiet.

My mark was beating so hard I thought it would come out through my skin. Thump. Thump. Thump. Under my collar, the moonstone was so cold it hurt.

I couldn't look up at him. I was too afraid of what I would see in his face. So I looked at our hands instead. His on top. Mine underneath. Like they belonged that way.

Then he pulled his hand away.

He did it fast, the way you pull your hand back from a hot stove. He sat back against his door and looked down at his own fingers. He opened them. He closed them into a fist. He opened them again.

"Did you…" he started.

He stopped.

I held my breath. *Don't ask me,* I begged in my head. *Please don't ask me if I felt it. Rule seven. I can't lie to you, and I can't tell you the truth.*

He looked at his hand for a long time. Then he shook his head, slowly, like a man waking from a dream.

"It's the leather," he said quietly. "These seats. They make sparks when it's dry."

He said it to himself more than to me. Like he needed to believe it.

I said nothing. I picked up the pen from the floor with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking, and I finished writing my name. Mira Hale. The letters were crooked and ugly. Then I handed him the papers.

He took them without touching my fingers this time. He was very careful about it. He put them back in the folder and closed it and looked out his window, and he didn't speak to me again for the rest of the drive.

In the mirror, I saw Rowan's brown eyes move from his Alpha to me and back again. He didn't say anything either. But his eyebrows were pulled together, like a man trying to solve a puzzle.

---

I saw the sea an hour later.

The road came over the top of a hill, and suddenly the trees were gone, and there it was. Grey and silver and endless, stretching all the way to the edge of the sky. White waves rolled in and crashed against black rocks far below. The wind came in through the window and filled the car with the smell of salt.

I forgot to be afraid. I forgot everything. I just pressed my hands against the glass and stared.

"You've never seen it," Kael said.

It wasn't a question. I turned. He was watching me. Not the sea. Me.

"No," I whispered. "Never."

He looked at me a moment longer. Something moved across his face, quick, and then it was gone. He turned back to his window.

"That's Blackfang," he said, and nodded ahead.

I looked.

It sat right on the edge of the cliffs, high above the water. A huge house made of black stone, with tall towers at each corner and narrow windows like eyes. It didn't look like a house where people lived. It looked like something that had grown out of the rock itself. Something old and hard and angry.

The wind was howling around the towers. A flag with a black wolf on it was snapping at the top of the highest one.

"It's not as cold inside as it looks," Rowan said from the front seat. He caught my eye in the mirror and smiled. "Well. Not much."

I tried to smile back. I don't think I managed it.

---

The whole pack was waiting in the courtyard.

There were so many of them. Hollowmere was a small pack. Two hundred wolves, maybe. Blackfang had to have a thousand. They stood in rows on the black stones, men and women in dark clothes, with children peeking out from behind their mothers' legs. When the car stopped and Kael got out, every single one of them bowed their head at the same time.

Then I got out, and they all looked up.

It was like being in the square at Hollowmere again. All those eyes on me. But in Hollowmere, at least, people had known me. Here I was a stranger. Something new and strange, dropped on their doorstep.

They looked at my old blue dress, too long and too big. They looked at my small bag. They looked at the bruise on my cheek. Some of them leaned in and breathed in my smell, the way wolves do. I saw their faces change. Confusion first. Then surprise. Then something worse.

The whispers started, soft as wind through grass.

*She has no wolf.*

*Can you smell that? Nothing. She smells like nothing.*

*A human. He brought home a human.*

*The Butcher's human.*

Somebody laughed. A young woman near the front, with long red hair and a pretty, mean face. She put her hand over her mouth, but her eyes were still laughing at me.

Kael turned his head.

He didn't say a word. He just looked at her. And the laughing stopped so fast, it was like someone had cut it with a knife. The red haired woman went white. She dropped her eyes to the ground.

The whole courtyard went silent.

"This is Mira," Kael said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the whole courtyard, all the way to the back rows. "In three days, she will be my wife. You will treat her as you would treat me. Is that understood?"

A thousand heads bowed at once.

"Yes, Alpha."

He turned to me. "I have to go. The rogues who came to your forest are still out there. I want them found." He paused. "My housekeeper will show you to your room. Ask her for anything you need."

"Yes, Alpha."

"Kael," he said.

I looked up.

"In this house, in front of my pack, you call me Kael. A wife doesn't call her husband Alpha." He looked away. "It would look strange."

"Yes… Kael."

His name felt strange in my mouth. Strange and warm, like a sip of hot tea on a cold day.

He nodded once. Then he turned and walked back to the car with Rowan, and the engine started, and he was gone.

I stood alone in the middle of the courtyard while a thousand strangers stared at me.

---

The housekeeper was a tall woman with grey hair pulled back in a tight bun. She had a long face and a mouth that didn't look like it had ever smiled. She walked me through the big front doors without a word.

Inside, the house was even bigger than it looked. The hallways were tall and dark, with stone floors that made every step echo. Old paintings hung on the walls. Wolves. Battles. Stern old men with gold eyes. Fires burned in big stone fireplaces, but the air was still cold, and it smelled of salt and old smoke.

"Your room is ready," the housekeeper said. "In the east wing. Next to the Alpha's."

"Thank you."

We were halfway up the grand stairs when a voice called down from above.

"Oh! There you are!"

My stomach dropped.

Selene was standing at the top of the stairs.

She was wearing a long dress of deep red silk that I had never seen before. It must have been new. It fit her perfectly, hugging her hips and falling to the floor like water. Her black hair was pinned up on her head with gold pins, and there were small red stones in her ears. She looked like a queen.

Behind her stood two young maids in black uniforms, holding a basket of towels and a tray with a teapot. They were following her around. Waiting on her.

She came down the stairs slowly, smiling her perfect, cruel smile. She stopped two steps above me so she could look down on me.

"Sister," she said sweetly. "Welcome to Blackfang. Isn't it lovely?"

"Selene," I said quietly.

She looked me up and down. My old dress. My messy hair. The bag in my hand. Her smile got wider.

"Oh, look at you," she said. "Is that my old dress? The one I threw away? It looks so much better on you." She laughed and turned to the maids behind her. "Doesn't it look better on her?"

The two maids looked at each other. One of them gave a small, nervous laugh.

Selene turned to the housekeeper. "Where are you taking her?"

"To the east wing, Miss Hale. The Alpha's orders."

"The east wing?" Selene pressed her hand to her chest like she was shocked. "Oh, no. No, that won't do at all."

"Miss?"

"My poor sister isn't used to fine things. She's lived in the kitchen her whole life. If you put her in some big fancy room, she'll be so uncomfortable. She won't sleep a wink." She leaned toward the housekeeper and lowered her voice like she was sharing a secret. "Isn't there something smaller? Something more… simple? Near the servants, maybe? She'll feel more at home there."

The housekeeper's long face didn't change. But I saw her eyes move. Up the stairs, toward the guest wing where Selene's beautiful room must be. Then back down to me in my old blue dress.

I could see her thinking. Which girl will be the Luna of this house? The beautiful one with the mark on her neck? Or the human with nothing?

"There is a room in the north tower," the housekeeper said slowly. "Near the old servants' quarters. It's small. But it's quiet."

"Perfect!" Selene clapped her hands. "Oh, Mira will love it. Won't you, sister?"

They both looked at me.

I knew what Kael had said. *If anyone in my house disrespects you, you tell me.* I knew I could say no. I could say, *The Alpha told you the east wing.*

But he was gone. And I was so tired. And I had spent my whole life learning one lesson above all others. Don't make trouble. Don't fight back. If you fight back, it only gets worse.

"It's fine," I said quietly. "The north tower is fine."

Selene's smile turned sharp and happy, like a cat with a mouse.

"You see?" she said. "She's so easy to please."

Then she came down one more step, and she leaned close to my ear. Her rose perfume was so sweet it made me feel sick. She breathed in, and I felt her stiffen for a moment. Then she relaxed.

"You smell like dishwater," she whispered. "Good. Keep it that way." Her voice dropped even lower. "Mother told you the rules. One word, and that old woman of yours goes down to the cells. I'm watching you, sister. Every single day."

She pulled back and smiled at me sweetly for everyone to see. Then she went on down the stairs with her two maids behind her, and her red silk dress whispered on the stone.

---

The room in the north tower was very small.

It had a narrow bed with a thin grey blanket. A wooden chair. A tiny fireplace with no wood in it. And one small window, high in the wall, with a crack across the glass.

The housekeeper left without saying goodnight. I heard her steps go away down the long stone stairs.

I put my bag on the bed. I sat down beside it. And then, for a long time, I just sat.

It was so cold. The wind got in through the crack in the glass and whistled around the room. I pulled the thin blanket around my shoulders and climbed up on the chair so I could look out the little window.

The sea was out there in the dark. I couldn't see it, but I could hear it. Crashing and crashing against the rocks, over and over, like it was angry about something and could never stop.

*Mama,* I thought. *Are you all right? Are you safe?*

I touched the moonstone under my dress. It was still cold. But not as cold as it had been in the car.

I didn't go down to dinner. Nobody came to get me. When it got dark, I ate the last piece of bread from my bag, the one my mother had wrapped for me that morning. It was dry and a little hard. It was the best thing I had ever tasted.

Then I lay down on the narrow bed with my clothes on and tried to sleep.

I couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his hand on mine. Shaking. I felt the heat. I heard his voice. *Don't fall in love with me.*

*Too late,* I thought. *Oh, Goddess, I think it's already too late.*

Far below, a clock somewhere in the house began to strike. I counted the bells. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Midnight.

Then I heard something else.

Footsteps. Soft ones, on the stone stairs outside my door. Coming up slowly. One at a time.

I sat up in bed, holding the blanket against my chest.

The footsteps stopped right outside my door.

I didn't breathe. I waited for a knock. For a voice. For anything.

Nothing came.

Then I heard a small, dry sound. A whisper of paper sliding across stone.

Something white came in under the crack of my door.

The footsteps went away again, fast, down the stairs. Gone.

I sat frozen for a long, long time. Then, slowly, I got out of bed and crossed the cold floor in my bare feet. I knelt down and picked it up.

It was a folded piece of paper.

My hands were shaking as I opened it. There was only enough light from the window to read by. Just one line, written in black ink, in handwriting I had never seen before.

*I know what you did at the Weeping Spring.*