Wolf Teeth || Book I : Summer {M/M} ❄

Chapter #25

The day of Summer's End, Oryen went to the barracks and found a paper-wrapped parcel on his hammock with his name written on it. Inside were clothes like the kind he'd seen at Kalysto and Reyz's wedding—a sleeveless vest in stiff fabric, laced at the back like a corset, with gold thistles embroidered on the shoulders. A scarf of sheer, golden fabric accompanied it. He'd seen werewolves wrap this in different ways. Around the waist, across the chest, around the neck. He had no idea where to begin. His gratitude for the gift soured because his brother wasn't there to teach him how to wear it.

He looped it around his neck and stared helplessly at the loose ends.

"That's wrong."

Oryen sighed heavily. By now he'd gotten used to the manner in which Beau arose from the shadows like a persistent waking nightmare. "You here to teach me?"

"I have a job for you."

"Can it wait? I'm supposed to go to this party thing. And, you know, schmooze. Which I haven't done in a long time. I'm nervous, and I doubt you're here for a pep talk so..."

Beau said, "It's a job you'll carry out at the party."

"Great. Because chatting up werewolves who mistrust me and skulking around for you are sure to be a winning combination."

"No skulking this time," Beau corrected.

"Then what?"

Beau watched Oryen drop the scarf ends in a huff. In the dim light of the barracks, perhaps Oryen imagined that Beau's gaze looked softer, conflicted. He strode forward. Oryen nearly backed up and tripped into his hammock, but for once Beau didn't pull a dagger from his pocket or stab him with a finger. He took the trailing ends of the scarf.

"Here."

He pulled the fabric loose from Oryen's shoulders, the silk gliding over the hammering pulse in Oryen's throat. Instead of his neck, Beau looped the scarf around Oryen's waist.

"It's traditional that only the Mardero Alpha wears it across the chest, and the lesser Alphas around their necks," Beau said.

For a moment, his arms were around Oryen's waist in a facsimile of a hug, close enough his hair brushed Oryen's chin. Oryen nearly rocked forward on the balls of his feet. He recalled in painful, sensory detail the last embraces he'd known. His brother's when they first met, Edrik's when they said goodbye. He missed it and knew it was stupid to long for it now, here, with this man who loathed him. "Uh, thanks for saving me from the faux-pas?"

"You're useless to me if you insult everyone the second you walk into the room," Beau muttered dryly. "The placement is symbolic of trust. You keep your heart and throat bare to your betters because you trust them. At the end of the party, if it's a success, the Alphas will remove theirs entirely." Beau's long-fingered hands made deft work of a complicated knot, which left one end of the scarf exactly half the length of the other. "I need you to speak to a man named Tavell Qaelish."

The pack name rang a bell. "Any relation to Jezarri?"

"Her father." Beau tugged the scarf around so the ends hung off Oryen's hip. "He's Alpha of justice, so he also manages the prison cells beneath Kolraga." As Beau's fingers snuck under the band of the scarf, the heat of them pressed through Oryen's clothes. He pulled the edges out so the sash appeared broader on one side. "Ask him about any notable prisoners, criminals, people kept there. Butter him up by talking about whiskey or his daughter."

"Why don't you speak to him, if you already know the way into his good books?"

Beau gave Oryen a long-suffering look. "I'm human. And a smuggler. Would asking about notable prisoners not seem suspect to you?"