Nia Silvermane wiped the bar and counted the girls she had gathered: three now, all half-blood like her, all done with hiding. She had left her pack to build something no one would give them. A place in Skaldir where a woman with wolf ears could pour ale without a hood. She wanted a haven, and she wanted a strong wolf to lead the pack she was forming. The tavern was warm and full. Then the door opened, and the warmth left the room. The stranger walked in and took the table with his back to the wall. He was big, gray-haired, calm. But it was his scent that hit Nia. It was wrong for a man. Under the road dust she smelled a hidden wound, old pain, and hunger sharp enough to hurt. She smelled interest too, aimed at her and the girls, though he kept his eyes down. Dara set her tray on the bar. Her ears were flat. "He smells like blood," she said. "Under the leather." Lira stood by the stairs, still as a held breath. She had tracked worse men than this one. "He's hurt," she said. "Hurt men bite." She did not soften it. Nia knew the smart move. Serve him fast, watch him leave. But hunger and pain were things she chased in the woods every day, and she had never learned to walk past them. She filled a bowl with stew and carried it over herself. She set it down. He looked up then, and his eyes were steady, not leering. Old eyes that had weighed many rooms. "I didn't order that," he said. "You need it," Nia said. "I can smell it on you." He went still. His hand moved to his side, to the wound she had already found with her nose. Then he let the hand drop. "You're not what I expected in Skaldir," he said. His voice was flat and short, a man who spent no words he didn't mean. "Neither are you," Nia said. "Most men reach for a knife when they see the ears." "I've killed enough men," he said. "I'm done doing it for free." He ate. He ate like a man who had gone days without. When the bowl was empty he set down two coins. "Mike," he said. "They call me Mike the White. I've fought since before your mother whelped you." He studied her, then the girls behind her. "You lead these three." "I do," Nia said. "A pack with no fangs at the top," he said. It was not a question. Nia's heart kicked. She had been hunting the woods for an alpha. One had walked through her own door instead, wounded and hungry, sitting with his back to the wall like a wolf who trusted nothing. "You'll need a room," she said. "Upstairs. We should talk in the morning." He held her eyes a long moment. "Aye," he said. "We should." “But now I think I’ll eat and drink” he said as his scent spiked with curiosity about them and a bit of stubbornness. His scent was hungry for food and drink, and he was clearly trying to keep his wound hidden, so she left it alone. He also looked attentive to his surroundings, as if expecting trouble any minute. Nia and the girls were incredibly intrigued by the stranger who had wandered into her tavern as they gathered at the bar to whisper about him to each other. He sat at the table eating and drinking, minding his business. His eyes were unusually attentive and alert, and he kept an eye on the tavern door, seeming partly out of habit after taking a bite of food, almost as if expecting something to walk through the door.