“He?” The trousers dropped as she released them. Just one, then. That changed things. “Are you going to fight?”
“No!” He frowned, face half furred, and added, his voice slurred by the changing shape of his jaw. “Maybe.”
Then he was on four feet and, given the way his hackles had risen, Mirian suspected maybe was a distinct probably. They’d both been on edge for the last couple of days. Grieving for their dead. Snappish and uncertain about the way they’d dealt with it. The men who’d brutalized and murdered the family deserved to die, they agreed on that. What they couldn’t seem to settle on is how they were supposed to feel about what they’d done. Triumphant. Disgusted. Guilty. Justified. Nothing was clear anymore so Mirian, who could now feel the weight of Karis on the earth, kept them moving, clinging to the idea of rescuing the Mage-pack. At night she clung to Tomas; in the daylight, they didn’t talk about it.
And now, more Pack.
Alive.
She started after Tomas just as a huge dark gray wolf suddenly appeared out of a dip in the land. Between his color and his speed she had to squint to bring him into focus and then squint again, unable to believe his size. She’d thought Jaspyr Hagen had been a small silver pony when she’d seen him running toward her back in Bercarit. On that scale, what she saw now was closer to a full-sized horse. The stranger was the biggest Pack she’d ever seen. He made Tomas look small.
Mirian began to run as Tomas sped up.
She couldn’t hear either of them snarling. That had to be good. She hoped.
The first impact happened in the air, all eight paws off the ground. They landed, spun around each other, charged in again. Tomas hit the ground on his side, rolled, and was snarling by the time he’d reached his feet.
If this wolf was a wanderer, he’d want to establish dominance. If he was defending his family, he’d want to establish dominance. Tomas either thought he was protecting her or he needed to bleed off the emotional impact from killing those men or he was just reacting to the other male. And he was trying to establish dominance.
Mirian didn’t have the patience to put up with it.
“Enough!” She used the wind to whip the word between the two of them, then, as they scrambled apart, put herself there bodily. “We’re no threat to you,” she told the stranger, “and you’re no threat to us, so just stop it! Tomas!” The growling behind her stopped.
The stranger stared at her for a long moment, then he opened his mouth, tongue lolling out, and Mirian suspected he was laughing at her. She folded her arms and glared. To her surprise, he sobered, nodded once, as to an equal, and changed. Mirian watched him rise, and rise, and rise. The top of her head came to his shoulder and she was not, to her mother’s very vocal dismay, small. His shoulders were broad, heavily muscled, and scarred, his arms as big around as her thighs.
Look at his face. Look at his face. Look at his…Lord and Lady!
She snapped her gaze back up to his face. He was old enough the gray fur he kept on two legs passed as hair. Although he looked nothing like him, he reminded Mirian of her first impression of Ryder Hagen that night at the opera—the same barely contained energy, the same potential for danger barely harnessed.
He smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“We?”
“Me and Jake. He Saw you here yesterday and sent me out to find you.”
“Saw?”
“Aye. He’s a Soothsayer, sure enough, and mad as they come. Still, he’s mine and I’m his and we manage. I’ll wait for your lad…”
“Tomas Hagen,” Mirian told him. Even without turning, she knew Tomas was still in fur, unwilling to admit the fight was over.
“He’s a Hagen, is he? Well, I expect we’ll talk of that as well, but, for now, he needs to get his clothes.” The callused end of an enormous finger gently touched Mirian’s cheek and dark eyes looked into hers. “I don’t like leaving Jake for long on his own, so we’d best be on our way.”
“We don’t have time. We have to…”
The stranger cut her off. “You have to come with me. There’s things Jake’s Seen me tell you that you need to hear, little mage.”
“How did you know she was a mage?” Tomas demanded, gripping Mirian’s shoulder. Mirian leaned back toward him, a little afraid he was going to try and drag her out of danger and fully aware there’d be no danger unless Tomas started something. “She didn’t do anything and she has no mage marks.”
“She put words on the wind.” The big man glanced over Mirian’s head. “And I have a nose, don’t I? Besides, Jake Saw it.” Then back at Mirian. “My Jake’s quite taken by you, little mage.”
“He’s never met me.”
“He sort of met you yesterday. He’s in tomorrow now, and you still seem to be around.”
“That’s…” Mirian frowned. The Mage-pack had been at the palace for days. They had no time to follow this man home to his crazy Soothsayer. They had to get to Karis and rescue the Mage-pack without having any of idea of what they were up against—beside the entire Imperial army—and no idea of how to get them out of the palace after they somehow managed to find them. But Jake had Seen the big man tell her things she needed to hear. “Can’t you tell me…?”
“No. He Saw us at our table, sitting down when I told you.”
She sighed. “Tomas, maybe you’d better go and get your clothes.”
“We don’t even know his name,” Tomas growled.
“You have my scent, but if you need something to call me, Gryham will do.”
“Just Gryham?”
“Never had need of another.” He folded his arms and his brows rose.
Mirian flushed. “Mirian Maylin. Tomas…”
He got his clothes, but didn’t put them on, taking the bedroll from Mirian and draping them over the top. Mirian could sort of see his point in remaining naked. If Gryham was in skin and Tomas was in trousers, Gryham would have the distinct advantage if it came to a fight, able to change faster. It seemed wisest to ignore that Gryham would have the distinct advantage if Tomas were already in fur and Gryham was dressed for the theater.
Over the last few days, Mirian had gotten very good at looking Tomas in the face. It shouldn’t have been so hard to apply the same discipline to looking at Gryham.
“We’ve got a bit of a walk,” Gryham explained as they headed east. “Jake Sees accurate, but he’s not always so convenient. This was as close to home as you came on your own.”
His accent put a different rhythm on familiar words. “You speak very good Imperial.”
He laughed. “Very good, is it? Well, I live in the empire, don’t I? Have for years.”
“How do you know my name?” Tomas demanded, his shoulder bumping against Mirian’s as they walked.
“I knew Dominic Hagen briefly when I was no older than you are now. He’d be…”
“My uncle.”
Not just Tomas’ uncle but the Pack Leader before Ryder. Mirian’s father had called him the man who’d brought Aydori into the modern world.
“I wandered down into Aydori from Orin looking to see a bit of the world, but when you’re an Alpha my size, people expect you to challenge. I might’ve won, who knows, but I didn’t want Aydori, did I, and your uncle was smart enough to see that.” Gryham ran a hand down his thigh. Mirian watched the blur against the sky that meant a passing bird. “Scar’s nearly faded now. You’ve a bit of his look about you—color of fur, length of leg. That silver streak, that’s where the pin was?”
Tomas rubbed the scar. “How did you know?”
“Jake Saw it. He’s been Seeing you two off and on for some days now. He seems to think that silver color’s important. Means something. Doesn’t know why or what it means though. Just keeps repeating find the silvered. Soothsayers.” But he said it fondly.