Etched in Bone

CHAPTER 31

They gathered in the wild country between Tala and Etu, and their footsteps filled the land with a terrible silence.

While the rest of the Elders listened, the two who had returned from Lakeside told the story of the sly predator that wasn’t a danger to the world or to Namid’s teeth and claws but was still dangerous because of the harm it could cause within a human pack—a harm that touched the smaller shifters. They told their kin about the sweet blood howling not-Wolf and the Wolf who wanted to be her mate. They spoke of job-fair migrations and the proper way to ask for tasty Wolf cookie treats. And they spoke of their mistakes in ignoring the animosity the smaller shifters felt toward the Cyrus human and how the not-Wolf had been lost and could have died because they had not heeded the Wolf’s warnings about that particular kind of human.

The two who had been in Lakeside told their story. And when the Elders made the journeys back to their own territories, they took the story—and its lessons—with them.