Wolfless.
Nothing there.
No wolf.
I heard my own voice before I felt myself decide to speak. "No."
Sera did not interrupt.
"I didn't shift," I said. "At fifteen I didn't shift. Nothing happened. They waited and nothing happened."
"I know," she said.
"I have never felt a wolf."
"I know."
I looked at her and anger came up so fast it surprised me. "Then how can you sit there and tell me this now?"
Her face did not change. "Because I am not guessing."
I looked away from her. Out the window. At the trees I could not actually see because all I could see was the yard at Ashcrest and my fifteenth birthday and Rodan's face and my father's eyes on the ground and the first night in the shack and the chain that came later. My hands had gone cold in my lap.
"You said it was there," I said.
