The Curse of the Beta のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

We did not get to say anything else to each other that night.The side door opened before we had got two steps away from the wall and the Gamma came out with a lantern and two of his men behind him and his grey face working like a man chewing something bitter. "Regent," he said, and he said it the way a man says a word he does not like the taste of. "The hall is still full. There are men who want to know how a Beta with no wolf in him is going to stand in front of a pack tomorrow on an island with a rogue coming in on the tide.""Then I will tell them.""Then tell them now." He turned and went back in through the door.I looked at Clara. She had her shawl round her and her hand still against my chest and her jaw set, and she said, "Go. I will be here. I am not going anywhere." She took her hand away and went round to the front of the hall and in through the main door, and I went after the Gamma.The hall was hot and loud. It was hot with the fire and the lamps and the bodies of a hund

I heard the gate go and then I heard two sets of feet on the path, and the door opened and Clara came in with Nina behind her.Nina had her bag on her shoulder and her dark hair was wet and her grey eyes went round the schoolroom once and then settled on me. She had been crying. Her face was pale and her lashes were wet and she had the look of a woman who has been standing in the rain for a while and has not decided yet what to do about it.Clara stopped just inside the door."She was at the gate," Clara said. "She has been at the gate since I left."I got up off the bench. "Nina.""Do not." Nina put her bag down on the desk and did not look at me. "I heard. I was at the gate because I came down to tell you the second stage of the cure was ready and I did not knock because I saw the light and I heard voices and I did not want to walk in on the two of you. So I stood at the gate. And I heard all of it." She put her hands flat on the desk. "I heard the wolf speak. I heard him say mine.

I did not have time to think about the book on the altar or the line through the word servant or the brother standing in front of me with his face wet.I ran.The village was a noise when I came down the hill, a noise of dogs and shouting and a woman screaming from the direction of the kilns, and there were lanterns moving on the green and there were shapes moving between the houses that were not men and were not dogs. The wolves of the pack were coming out of their doors with their coats half on and their boots unlaced, and the Gamma was on the green with a boathook in his hand shouting names."Where is the Regent?" he shouted when he saw me. "Where in the name of God have you been?""Chapel. How many?""Six at least. Maybe eight. They came up from the south end where the shelf runs out and they went straight for the kiln house and then they went for the boats." He turned and shouted at two of his men. "The boats. Get down to the harbour and put yourselves between them and the boats.

We put Marcus in the byre with the black wolf.There was a chain on the wall that had not been used since the old Alpha's time and Bram ran it through the ring and put the cuff on Marcus's wrist with his own hands, and Marcus sat down on the hay and looked at the chain and said, "It is the same chain my father wore at the end." Then he lay down and turned his face to the wall and said nothing else.I put two of the Gamma's men on the door with a lantern and a boathook and I told them that if the Alpha came out of the byre before Bram came for him they were to knock him down and not be gentle about it. They looked at each other and then at me and did not ask a single question. That frightened me more than the questions would have.Then I went down to the shore.The moon was up now. It was a full moon and it was high and white and the water under it was silver and the tide was going out. The sand was showing at the channel and the island was black and flat, and the whole village was on

The boats came in on the last of the ebb with their oars going and their lamps low, and the pack stood on the shingle in a long line with their hooks and their boathooks and did not move.There were twelve men in the two boats and Rook was in the first one. He stood up in the bows as the boat came into the shallows and he had his coat off and his sleeves rolled and the mark on his hand was black in the moonlight, and he looked at the line of wolves on the shingle and at the copper wolf at the water's edge and at me."The Regent," he said. "And the Alpha on four legs. That is a sight I have been waiting for since the spring.""Put your men back in the boats and go out to your ship," I said, "and I will not put a chain on you tonight.""You will not put a chain on me at all." Rook stepped out of the boat into the shallow water and his men came out behind him. "I have a claim on this coast and I have a claim on that stone and I have a claim on the woman with the old blood, and I have com