Page 83 of Fated to the Feral Wolf

Suddenly, I was really glad we’d stopped at a cache at the edge of the woods to pull on sweats and weren’t walking up buck freaking naked.

“Shailene,” Brand said, warm familiarity in his tone. “I’m so glad to see you again.”

“Everyone calls me Shay now.” It was an asinine thing to say, but it was all I had.

Well, not all that I had. Dirge was holding my hand, hissolid presence at my side an easy reassurance. I wasn’t alone and scared anymore. I had a mate, and a pack who had my back.

I had afamily. The realization nearly knocked me down. All my life, I’d wanted a family. And now I had one. I’d thought back then it would be Brand and his pack, who was my family. But it was time to let that go. He had saved me from a feral life in the woods, and that was enough.

“Shay.” He said the name like he was testing it, rolling it around on his tongue. Then he nodded. “I wanted to give you something.” He held up a coin, waiting to see if I’d take it.

I closed the distance, accepting the weathered and ancient-looking piece of metal. “What kind of coin is it?” I asked, looking up to meet his eyes.

“An Etruscan coin. Very old, from ancient Italy.”

My eyebrows shot up as I turned it over in my hand. There wasn’t a date stamped on it, but it seemed weathered enough to be ancient, and it was heavy. Nothing like the newly minted thin coins we had nowadays.

I closed my fist around it as if it was going to vanish from my grip like he had from my life all those years ago. “It’s cool, but why did you want to give it to me?”

“It’s a token. A way to call for help, if ever you need it again. It can only be used once, but if you kiss the coin and say, ‘In time of greatest need, I call for greatest might.’ Help will come.”

“Umm, okay.” I was confused. So very, very confused.

He smiled then, the look oddly wistful. “I wanted you to have it before I left.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

He looked down, and I realized his hand seemed to waver in the burgeoning light.

“My time draws to an end, and I must go. Fare thee well, until we meet again,” he said with a soft smile, and then faded away, right before our eyes.

“Okay, that was weird as hell,” Dirge said. “Is the coin still solid?”

I opened my fist, and there it was. Solid and real, glinting in the sunlight even though the mysterious man who’d given it to me was long gone. Suddenly, I had all new questions about why he hadn’t kept me all those years ago.

“Huh. Well, can’t hurt to hang onto it, right?” He squeezed my shoulder, and I nodded.

Couldn’t hurt, indeed.

We crashedfor three hours before the noise from the living room woke us. Dirge was up and out of bed first, using the bathroom and heading to his suitcase to pull on fresh clothes. He froze in front of it, then spun to face me.

“Did you leave this here?” he asked, holding up a piece of folded parchment. His name was scrawled across the front in swirling calligraphy that I didn’t recognize. The back was sealed with ruby-red wax.

“No. What is it?” I sat up, clutching the blankets to my chest as curiosity won out over exhaustion.

“A note.”

“Who’s it from?” I prompted when he didn’t say more, scanning the inside.

“I don’t know. It’s only one line: ‘The Fetya have been paid.’”

What the fuck?

“What does that even mean?” I asked, reaching for him to hand me the letter. He was right. One line, and it was unsigned. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it was sepia ink on heavy paper, a little scratchy, as if someone had written it with a quill rather than a modern pen.

“I think it means they’re not going to exact another price.But… who even knows about that? And why wouldn’t they just tell us if it were true?”

“I have no idea.” I paused, hesitating before I passed the note back to him. “Dirge, does this impression in the wax look familiar to you?”

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