Page 43 of Knife Volume 2

But she looked around and breathed in the beauty of this mountain, and forked a large venison sausage from the plate someone set down in the center of the table.

This was a good morning, and she chose to enjoy it rather than grieve what she’d lost.

Knife’s mother grabbed two biscuits as soon as someone put a platter down, and told Knife, “Your grandfather does not get to keep you the entire time. You’re sleeping at our house tonight.”

Knife grinned and scooped some eggs onto Tuesday’s plate, then his own. “Of course we are, Mom. Grandfather needed time with Tuesday, but that’s settled now.”

His mother looked at Tuesday with something that’d moved considerably past the careful warmth of the initial meeting, and smiled.

“Good,” she said. “I have questions of my own.”

Later, at his mom’s house, after a huge meal of venison meatloaf, mashed potatoes, fried corn perfectly caramelized in bacon grease, green beans cooked long and slow, and sliced tomatoes with salt — Knife asked his mother, “I can kind of understand why Grandfather wouldn’t share with me that he’d remarried, unsure of how to bring it up, worried it might hurt me, thinking he’d replaced…” He shook his head. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

She closed her eyes, and Tuesday scented deep, emotional pain. She shook her head ever-so-slightly when she opened them, and said, “It’s verboten to speak of it. After the… events that transpired, he brought everyone over the age of seven into the field, gave a decree, explained it, and said if anyone had anything to say, they should say it then, because it would be verboten until his death once the meeting was called to an end.”

Knife sat back, his brows drawn. “Hezekiah never liked Grandfather. Did he challenge him?”

Knife’s mother only said, “I wish I could talk to you about this, but you know I can’t.”

In wolf packs, when you see an older alpha, it tells you the entire pack, or at least around ninety percent, is pleased with the way this alpha runs the pack. A good percentage of the pack could probably challenge and win, but if they pissed the rest of the pack off, they’d be slaughtered for it.

Also, if the biggest badass of the pack made it known they would step in as a second, to fight in place of the alpha if he or she was challenged, that tended to work, too.

“I suck at controlling my scent,” Knife’s fifteen-year-old sister said. “Ask away.”

“Y’all go outside to do that,” Knife’s mother said, and she gave Knife a look that only a mother can. “If you get her whipped — or worse — for telling, I’ll tan your hide myself, even if I have to get your father to drive me to Chattanooga to do it.”

“I’ll be careful, Mom. Promise.”

Tuesday wasn’t sure whether to stay put or go outside, but Knife grabbed her hand and pulled her up, making it clear she was going to hear this as well.

Once outside with huge glasses of lemonade, Knife and Tuesday sat in a swing while his sister sat ten feet away with her back to them, like she wasn’t part of their conversation at all, and Knife asked question after question.

“Did Hezekiah challenge Grandfather?” A pause while he breathed in. “Oh wow. He really was an idiot, wasn’t he? Okay, I’ll assume someone offered to fight in his place? Did whoever fight him take it to the death on his own…” A five-second pause. “Or did Grandfather order it.”

Tuesday scented confusion. This wasn’t a yes-or-no answer.

Apparently, her scent told Knife what he needed to know though, because he said, “Oh, wow. Hezekiah made threats about killing him outside of a challenge? Really? That’s instant death, nearly always. No other option.”

Knife sat back. “If you challenge someone and lose, they become your inheritor, and it sounds like Grandfather took winner’s rights? Claimed Hezekiah’s wife as his own?”

Knife’s sister stood, turned her chair around, and sat back down. “I was worried at first, but she seems good for him. He’s been alone a long time, and…” A shrug. “We all knew Hezekiah wasn’t the best husband. I think she’s better off now.”

“And that’s all you need to say,” Knife said. “Let’s head back inside, so I can quiz Mom about all the other gossip.”

Tuesday turned everything over in her mind on the walk back to the house. She’d heard stories about all the challenges Cora had faced when Randall’s power had snapped to her after his death. If the rumors were right, and she suspected they were, then a whole lot of challengers were buried under the parking area of Homewood, and no one had challenged her for many, many years.

Supernatural law can be brutal, but it has to be. Tuesday wasn’t at all naïve about that, but this was a layer beyond normal pack rules.

A challenger wins everything the old alpha had, which means, to keep things fair, if the challenger loses, the alpha gains everything belonging to the person trying to take his position.

But she’d never heard of that applying to people. Or, at least not with wolves. It does with lions, but that’s a whole different society.

But in a closed group with arranged marriages, she supposed winning the wife shouldn’t be that surprising.

She was floored again with the fact she was in love with a damned dire wolf. And somehow, her inner wolf had known he was different. Bigger. Way bigger.

But Dorcas was a dire wolf, too. Part of this group. Tuesday considered what she’d seen of Dorcas, who’d legitimately seemed as if she belonged there. It was their house, not his, and Tuesday hadn’t picked up on any animosity.