The Last Wolf by Maria Vale

Author:Maria Vale [Vale, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2017-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

“Just what the hell is that?” he asks furiously.

“Ti, please, you’ve got to stop fracking out.”

“It’s freaking out. I’m freaking out!”

“Listen to me. The most sacred thing we have is our wild. By changing Offland, I endangered that. It is felasynnig, most wicked. I had to be punished.”

“So they branded you?” He jumps up and turns quickly toward the back. Victor’s head pops back into the safety of John’s office, and the door locks.

“This was my decision,” I snap. “It’s just a flesh wound. Besides, I am proud to wear Tiw’s mark.”

“Do not say that’s my mark,” he says. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Not Ti’s mark, Tiw’s mark.” He looks bewildered. “Tell me you don’t know the story of Fenrir and Tiw?” But of course, he doesn’t. How could he? His mother dead, his father hostile to his wild, it’s up to me to make sure he knows our stories. Not the version humans tell themselves, but the one that wolves tell. The real one.

“So.” And I start to tell him about Loki’s son, the huge and terrifying wolf, Fenrir. I tell him how even the gods were afraid of his ferocious wildness and wanted him bound.

“The humans say Tiw volunteered to put his right hand in Fenrir’s mouth as surety that the fine ribbon the gods meant to wrap around him would do Fenrir no harm, but as usual, the gods could not be trusted. The ribbon being made of bird spit or something was actually magic so powerful that it was able to chain Fenrir. Furious at this betrayal, Fenrir bit off Tiw’s hand.

“We wolves have a different story. We say that Tiw did bind Fenrir, but he bound the wolf inside himself, having fed Fenrir his right hand, the hand that gods and humans use as warranty for their lies, so he would never make a false promise again. We say that once the wolf was bound within him, Tiw stopped being the god of war, as he had been, and instead became the god of law, because he understood in a way no one else could that law is the balance of freedom and restraint.

“It’s the mark of a real wolf,” I say urgently, my good hand against his cheek. “Someone who was more human would have taken the other option and stayed in skin for two moons.”

He cradles my swollen, greased palm.

“And you, of course, couldn’t do that, could you, Wildfire?”

“Never.”

Later in the medic station, while waiting for Tristan to bandage my hand, I ask Ti what happened with Kyle.

“Mmmph,” he says, taking a bite of apple. “When a Yankee says, ‘Wow, so you’re from Canada. How interesting,’ you know you’re being swindled.”

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