Chapter Seven Cantor

I watched a barn owl take to the sky, nearly at level with me as I gazed out from the second floor window. The night was clear and quiet outside the inn, and the night wore her stars like tiny, glittering scales.

The other alphas had groaned and complained when Sinclair insisted that we each take a watch shift in the corridors outside the beta's room.

Well, Bastian had, anyway.

My friend had got himself into a snit about the whole thing. However, after that long night we spent searching the riverbank he deserved to have some unbroken rest, so I made sure his shift was after mine and I had no intention of waking him for it.

I didn't mind being awake after everyone else was in bed. How else would I see the owl, floating on silent, silken wings under a shimmering canopy?

There were too many people in this town. Too many in the market, too many in the inn. I didn't mind an occasional chaos of people when we were home. At the fort, I had a routine. I had the forest to disappear into when it called me. Our own people were kind and left me alone most of the time.

Here, people were always staring at me. Cataloging my white skin, my pale hair, so different from the norm in Raksim. Wanting to ruffle the feathers of the big man, to pluck the feathers of a mate to princes, to oil the feathers of a phoenix. All of it involved talking at me.

The strangers here burrowed under my skin like termites. Biting and scratching and tunneling until everything was weak and maybe I was about to collapse.

Right now, in the sparse light of the stars, I could breathe. I was grateful for it.

Sinclair was probably being paranoid, though. The beta had seemed very meek at dinner. She never met my eye. So underfed and twitchy with pain, I wanted to put her in a dark box with a bowl of food and a pile of blankets and just let her heal. She didn't seem to me like she was going to run, or whatever it was that Sinclair thought she would do.

The owl was diving toward its second kill of the night when the beta proved me wrong. The click of a lock sounded up the corridor and the girl's door slowly swung open, toe by careful toe. My eyebrows rose as if on strings as she emerged, hunched over like a sneaking cat, and crept down the corridor in the dark. She was carrying a little bundle, wrapped in a sheet. I imagined it was everything she thought might be useful from her room.

All her fear was seemingly gone.

Had she been faking her meekness the whole time? The little minx .

Delighted by this clever behavior, I followed her on soft feet. She didn't hear me. I know how to creep through the shadows. How to move so smoothly the wild creatures of the forest think you belong there.

She went straight to her brother's old room and began to pick the lock.

Actress, lockpick, escape artist. Was there no end to this girl's tricks? I wondered if she had a healer's kit hidden in that dress that would put her brother's fever right as well. If she wasn't matching wits against Sinclair, who had been one step ahead of her, maybe she could have fixed her brother up, and then carried him away into the night.

Little bird just wanted to be free.

I stepped behind her and caught the exact moment she scented me. Right as the lock clicked, and the door opened.

Most people don't like my scent, and the girl was no different. She stiffened as it hit her. For some reason, it made me sad. I'd been thinking of her as an injured animal or bird. But animals liked my scent. This beta wasn't a wild thing from the forest that I could release, now that she was showing signs of healing. Sinclair wouldn't like that at all.

Besides, it was obvious that she would never leave without her brother.

So I stood still, only a hairsbreadth from her back, as she gazed into the empty room that had been revealed in front of her.

"We moved him last night," I told her, gently. "He's got a fever, so the innkeeper's daughters are keeping an eye on him for us. They're betas, so it's safe for them to sleep nearby."

I saw her deliberately scrunch up her shoulders as she turned to face me. A little bird trying to fake a broken leg to lead me away from her nest.

"I'm sorry sir," she whispered, her voice broken. "I jus' wanted to see my brother."

She cringed away from me as though I would hit her.

Now that I understood that she was acting, I could tell she was overselling it a bit. Maybe she was too tired to do better. Or maybe I just hadn't been paying close enough attention before.

All my attention was on her now.

I inhaled, trying to catch her scent, but it was strangely absent.

Stepping even closer, I surprised myself when I reached out and gently stroked her cheek with my fingertips. Touching people isn't something I do often. Bastian likes to touch, but I never have. But, for some reason, I itched to pet this girl. To praise her for her efforts.

Such a clever little starling.

She flinched back from me and I winced, letting my hand drop. Of course. Of course no one wanted the huge, weird, haybarn alpha touching them. I had never wanted to touch anyone outside my pack, had never risked it before.

Why was this girl, rimed in faint starlight, any different?

To my shock, she swayed forward and inhaled deeply as if she were trying… to scent me? She liked my scent? I blinked at her. Surely not. And yet, she seemed to be gulping it down, her nostrils flaring, as if I were a comfort and not an irritation.

"Go on, Starling," I said gruffly, strange emotion clogging my throat. "Get yourself back to bed. No more wandering at night."

She kept her pretty gray eyes on me for a few seconds longer, then rushed past me in a burst of speed, all the way back to her room. She paused in her doorway.

"Is my brother going to be alright?" she whispered, all trace of her silly accent gone.

Maybe she wasn't a hardened trickster after all.

Maybe she was just desperate.

"It's not a dangerous fever," I told her. "He should be fine in the morning."

Without another word she snapped her door shut.