Chapter 27. The Smell of Shame

Josie's POV

He came back.

I'd told my father the truth, in the long cabin with the open lock in my hand: that I'd let him out, and why, and that he'd be back by sunrise. Jonah had looked at me for a long time without saying anything.

Then he'd sat down on the bench where Weston had sat, with his huge hands hanging between his knees, and said, "Then we'll wait for sunrise," and we had. All twenty of them. In the cabin and on the porch and down by the creek, with their guns across their knees.

At ten past six, a man came walking up the valley track alone, muddy to the waist, with no gun and no sword and nobody behind him.

Every wolf in that valley watched the Crown Prince of the Eastern Packs walk the last half mile into the town that hated his family more than anything on ear