PRINCE OF WOLVES By Susan Krinard

He tried to tell himself that she would not suffer for it. Her clear intellect, her range of emotions, those would remain untouched. She would not lose any part of herself that was true, or forget anything that had meaning. Not permanently. He had helped her—to live as the wolf lives, as most of his people did—one day at a time, without dwelling on a past that could not be changed, without the fear of an unforeseeable future that so often poisoned the lives of Outsiders.

It had poisoned his life as well. He feared that unknown future so deeply that he stole part of his mate’s very will and locked it away where she could not find it. Hid it from her so that she could not make the choice to leave him. A choice he could not accept and dared not risk. The choice his father had made, that had killed his mother.

He slapped his fist against the dusty floorboards so hard that his bones ground together with shooting pain. Having lost himself so completely, he had bungled the one thing in his life that should have brought joy and wholeness to both of them. For he knew that Joey felt it too—but not with that cool rationality with which she had always kept the world at bay. With the deeper needs she did not dare to acknowledge within herself, the same needs he had, an empty void of heart and soul that only he could fill.

As only she could fill his.

He heard Collier’s quiet step and smelled him before the doctor opened the door. Luke didn’t feel the cold that flooded the room, overwhelmed as it was by a far more biting inner chill. He looked up bleakly as Collier closed the door behind him and leaned against it to regard his younger friend from the illusory safety of a few meters’ distance.

“Don’t worry, Allan,” he said with an astringent smile. “I won’t bite you.” His tone belied his words, but it seemed reassurance enough for Collier; the doctor moved closer and settled on the stool nearest the hearth. Luke took in the tense posture and smell of apprehension. Collier, he reminded himself again, was not the threat.

“I’ve called in my transportation, Luke,” Collier said with careful neutrality. “He’ll be out to pick me up this afternoon.” There was an expectant silence, Luke only stared, and at last Collier cleared his throat and continued, “I shouldn’t have stayed this long, but the freezing rain and fog kept Walters grounded; Joey’s out of any danger now, and I’m urgently needed back in Lovell.” He stopped again and shifted on the stool, the slight movements and twitches of his normally placid frame revealing his unease.

“Then go, Allan. I’ll take care of Joey.” Luke’s voice was harsh, but he could not soften it, the edge of his guilt and need and anger had honed it to such sharpness that it cut the inside of his throat. With deliberate effort he remembered his debts. “I told you before—I’m grateful, and I won’t forget. You saved her.” Honesty and the memory of a former closeness compelled him to admit what Collier surely understood. “You saved both of us.”

“Does she know?” Collier spoke so quickly that Luke knew that one question had been his sole purpose, why he regarded his almost-son as he might an unpredictable, half-tamed beast. Which, Luke thought grimly, he was. Without intending it, Luke bared his teeth in an entirely humorless expression that was far from human.

“She knows.” The half-lie came with remarkable ease. It was a matter of survival, and it was the wolf-spirit that pushed aside the useless guilt. Even the human part of him knew there was some truth in it. She had known—for a moment she had truly known.

Collier almost relaxed, but his eyes were still wary and searching. “Does she really understand, Luke? What it will mean to her, how it will change her life?” Biting back a snarl, Luke turned away, but Collier’s voice was relentless.

“She must have a choice in this. You must allow her to choose her own destiny, Luke. She didn’t grow up all her life preparing, hoping for the possibility of what has happened.” Luke shut his eyes as if that small act could keep out the words.

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