it that way for years, a phone call from the pack house and a walk through the trees with my bag, and

her. So on Thursday morning I walked up the track behind the pack house with my bag in my hand and found him sitting

like hell,

een sleep

ce w

e Mon

the time he got the door shut. Silas was sixty-nine years old and had been Alpha of the

chest. His breathing was wet at the bottom. There was a gray cast under his skin tha

as before,

than

ttle

e examination table. "The last dose did no

had gone cloudy at the edges, and he looked at the ceiling the way a man l

se will kill

kills me fas

her hand. She had come in at six that morning and she had not said more than ten words to me

must be the new doctor.

ame in and pulled the curtain close

ed up his sleeve, and Nadia took his arm

he sleeve higher. She did not say anything about them. She put her fingers on his wrist and counted, and then she pulled the stethoscope o

she said

id not

" She set the stethoscope down. "I have seen one case of this. It was a man who worked in a photographic lab in

ys been big,

healing." She looked at the chart, the

," I

now what he

hat he is

ow it is no

e water was cold. Behind me I could hear Silas breathing and Nadia writing something on the chart, the pen

more often, and a chelating agent to pull the silver out. It will be

gh. "Doctor, I have been sick for t

very second day. And I will want to know who has been supplying him, b

rtain rings scraped

a long breath.

s a hu

e down over the scars with slow fingers. "I also know what she is to you. You have been stand

It does not matter

ything that has happened

il

erything else in for twelve years that this will be the same. It will not. The bond does not care about your promises. It does not care a

ain. My hands were on my k

o I do?

l her th

ill ki

ke. The other way is worse. You lie to her and she finds out from som

bell rang flat and a voice I did not

pushed the

been near a fish. He had pale blue eyes and a smile that did not reach them, and he was h

ind me. His voice had go

d the date on it. "The Council of Alphas does no

om with a box of gloves in her ha

"You said you would

nd his pale eyes went over my face and my hands and the

urse,"

sting it. "How convenient. I was hoping to spea

seal of the Council of Alphas, and under it, in careful black ink, my own name

d. "I think you will