For the benefit of those unhappy wolves, I said aloud, “Bran Cornick taught me that the pack only rules the territory it can keep safe from other predators. He taught me that where a debt is owed, it must be repaid.”

“What did this boy do for us?” asked Mary Jo, who’d come up with the others of the pack. At her back, as usual, stood Paul and Alec. Mary Jo wore a baseball cap and sunglasses to keep from being recognized. She was a firefighter in Pasco and had chosen to keep what else she was secret from them. But her secrecy felt like a “for now” thing, not a “forever.”

We’d been friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, until Adam had courted and married me. She thought he deserved a human woman, someone better than a werewolf like she was. That he’d chosen me, a coyote shifter, had devastated her—but she needed to get over it.

“He saved Joel,” I said mildly. She’d been on the bridge long enough that I was pretty sure she knew that.

“Oh. Joel. Your pet, right? The one you invited into the pack.” She gave voice to the unhappiness I felt through the pack, the bond we all shared feeling like sandpaper.

I stared at her, and she met my eyes for a whole two seconds before she dropped them. The roar of the pack rebellion died down to a murmur that no longer pounded at me through the pack bonds. Mary Jo’s wolf was convinced I outranked her, whatever her human half thought; that left her no room to challenge me, and she knew it.

“Bran also taught me guesting laws,” I continued. “A person who asks for shelter will get twenty-four hours if he makes no move to harm. He will get food, drink, and a bed. Protection from his enemies. Safety. It is what we offer any who come to us.” Those guesting laws were old. Bran adhered to them, but not all the wolf packs did. From the unease in the pack, I thought that they would be happier if I hadn’t mentioned the guesting laws. But the walking stick warmed gently in my hand.

“Can you keep your half of that bargain?” the boy asked me, looking around at the rest of the pack. He couldn’t read pack bonds, but he apparently was pretty good at reading unhappy expressions.

“Aiden,” I said. “I bid you welcome to my territory and my home.” It wasn’t enough, but, with the walking stick heating beneath my fingers, I could feel the words that needed to be said. “By my name, Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, by my authority as the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, I give you as much safety as my pack can provide for twenty-four hours as long as you act as a guest in my house and my territory.” I don’t know what kept my tongue going, or why I raised the walking stick. “By my word as Coyote’s daughter and bearer of Lugh’s walking stick, I so swear.”