Wolf Song (Wolf Singer Prophecies Book 1)

said, leaning my hip against the sideboard. My tea was finally cool enough to pick up. "Whatcha got?"
He smiled. "It's almost like a challenge." His eyes shone again, in that peculiar prismatic way like rainbows in captured moonbeams.
"How come I get the feeling that you tend to win against any challenge set in front of you?"
He just kept smiling and I ignored how that made my heart hammer in my chest.
"The way of it is that your dad, the preacher, would often take treks into the mountain. A little bit of a mission, so to speak, for him."
That was news to me. "He did what?"
Creed nodded. "Yes. At least once a month. He went out into the hill country and mountain basin to trade for supplies, get information, but mainly, to talk to the elders."
I blinked, processing that information. "So he was there recently, wasn't he? That's how you knew to come here?"
"Yes, he was there. He mentioned something to the elders and then things got very heated. But your dad left more'n a week ago. Something must have happened if he didn’t arrive back until now." Something about that made him growl in the back of his throat. I didn't have anything to fear from him, I could tell. But it did give me a glimpse of something. Like I didn't want to make him angry.
If he was what I thought he was, it wouldn't do anyone any good to make him angry.
I swallowed the tea to cover up my nerves. "So I don't want to beat around the bush, but you were talking about the hill country and the mountain basin and all that." I took a deep breath. "You're one of the wolves, aren't you? The real ones?"
A sheen clouded his eyes, and I swore there was a hint of gold in them now. Wolf's eyes.
"Yes." I didn't miss the growl in that, the bite.
"Look, I ain't judging. Just saying so we know what's what and are clear with who is who. And making sure I didn't have to worry that there was some enclave in the mountains starving to death or something like that."
I finished off my tea with a flourish.
He looked a bit humbled. "It means a lot that you thought of that."
I shrugged. "The townsfolk were sort of taken care of and my dad preached away the Hellfire every month or so and strengthened their walls with words of scripture. It's good to know that he went up into the hill country too, even if I didn't know about it."
The not knowing was going to gnaw at me. He didn't mind me knowing about the ways of the townsfolk, though he rarely wanted to mingle with them, of course, and frankly neither did I. But the fact that he never even thought to tell me about the hill country? Let alone the mountain basin? That was disturbing.
I nodded at the book and the piece of paper. "Anyhow, I found this crumpled in his hand. No one else knows, of course. I felt the need to keep it from the prying eyes of the townsfolk especially. Don't ask me why I felt the need to do that and yet I'm blathering on about it now."
I uncurled the piece of paper so that Creed could see. He just bent closer to it and didn't make a move to pick it up. In fact, he seemed like he was just sniffing over all the objects, peering close to them.
"Curious. This one has a lot of different scents in it. Of course, yours and your dad's are the most prominent, but there are others that are wholly unfamiliar."
I blinked. Who else would be handling these pages? I zeroed in on what he hadn’t said. "Are there any other scents that are familiar?"
"Well, yes, of course. There are the elders of the mountain basin and the hill country. Faint but there. It's in the type of pine that's present in those forests." He breathed deep. "There's a scent that's familiar to me but I don't recall it, and that will trouble me, of course. And then there are the other scents that I can pick out but I can't place." He straightened. "Does that help you at all, Soleil?"
There was a pause where he would have called me ramina. I appreciated the effort he had gone through to give me what I preferred. Respected it even.
I sighed nonetheless. "Maybe. I honestly don’t know enough context to be sure anymore." I paused and shadows flickered on the porch.
Before I asked, Creed answered. "Those were some from my pack."
I eyeballed him and nodded slowly. I put two and two together, though. There were those of his pack who had fulfilled the requirements of my dad's wards enough to be able to be on this side of the shield of protection. Including him.
I didn't want to think on those things. That kind of information wouldn't help me right now. "Uhm, so you all don't like, hang out like this all the time, right? Like you're off doing your own business and just come around every now and again?"
I met his gaze and his eyes were even more glowy amber than before. "We do have business we attend to, yes."
That was a decidedly political answer. It was something I expected in the towns: an answer that revealed nothing. I was kind of disappointed. My dad was always straightforward with me. Now if only he’d been transparent...
I was going to push for an answer, but I realized that I didn't care that much. They were clearly able to care for themselves, so there was no use in fussing over what they needed to do and why and if they were protected and if they had enough food and what about those horrible things in the woods, like that Skoll I'd outrun.
And not to mention, the...others.
It wasn't my business, right?
“You're right. Not my business."
He just met my gaze and held it.
Whatever he was about