Argus put his hand over his mouth and said, “The ranger doesn’t know yet.”

Noble decided to say nothing more about it and to just let nature take its course.

* * *

Why had the man been so angry? the werewolf wondered, as he sat in a clearing deep in the forest, surrounded by the members of his pack. They had taken from him only what they needed, but the man did not want to share. Instead of letting them go on their way, the man had sent his dog to scare them off. Too bad…it had forced them to kill it. Such a brave and loyal animal did not deserve to die that way.

As if sending the dog to its death wasn’t enough, the cowardly man had used his deathstick against them. The stick had boomed, and the crack had echoed across the mountain…but none of the pack had been hit.

It was a sign from Mother Earth that they were right to take what they needed from man. And with her blessing, they would be taking more.

For the winter’s chill had brought the hunger once again.

He would feed the pack.

But this time he would not go to the place where men lived, but to the place where men went to get their food.

It would be safer that way.

Chapter 7

When Tora got to school, she went directly to her locker to put her books and lunch away, then headed out to look for Maria Abruzzo. Maria’s mother had given her a new makeup kit and Maria’d offered to let Tora try some on before school.

Tora had never worn makeup before. It wasn’t that Phyllis wouldn’t let her, it was just that the topic had never really come up. With the exception of Phyllis, Tora was always surrounded by men, and when she was with her brothers, she did boy stuff. The pack’s biggest thing was running through the forest and, in the past few months, they’d searched for a lost girl, fought a pack of wild wolves, scared off a crooked logging company, and saved the forest around Redstone. Before that, Tora had been captured by a mad doctor and held in a cage until her brothers were able to rescue her. Not exactly girl stuff.

Of course there had been the play, Red Carnations, in which Tora played a young woman. That was fun—dressing up in a costume, putting on theater makeup, and acting onstage—but Tora had been pretending to be someone older, someone prettier…someone else.

This was different.

Having a friend like Maria, a girlfriend, was something that Tora had been missing in her life. Trying on makeup, and even borrowing some of Maria’s clothes, was a way for her to become something more than just Noble, Harlan, and Argus’s little sister.