“What about your mum?” Shifting her weight from one sandal to the other Deliah stares at him through narrow pink glasses.

“I-I don’t really remember her.” Staring at his feet, he swipes at the scar on his lip. It’s the first sign of emotion in him since they left school. Tessa promised not to feel sorry for him, but he’s making it hard. “But I think she was, I remember her having yellow eyes.”

Sally and Deliah exchange glances while Demi says,

“There, there pet, let's not have you all sad.” A bit ironic, since they are contemplating a death sentence for him, thought Tessa.

“Do you know which pack they came from?” Asks Sally, if she wasn’t an alpha Sally would have made an excellent headmistress, she had the sort of voice which could strike fear into the hearts of anyone.

“No.”

“Where did you live with them?” Sally frowns.

“We moved around a lot.” He sets his jaw. Tessa could smack him; she told him when they left the schoolgates the more information he gives the more likely he is to stay alive.

“Hmm,” Sally purses her lips, leaning in to examine Rye’s face. Nose twitching Rye stares back at her. The smell of a foreign alpha must stink for Rye. Tessa only met a foreign alpha once when she was thirteen, but she still remembered how he smelled of boiling cabbage. “Strange. Wolves like to establish their territory, it distresses us to move around with young cubs, especially mothers. Why did they move around so much?”

“I don’t know.” Rye stepped away. But Tessa doesn’t think he has let his tight facade crumble. His movements are too deliberate, his following words are punctuated at just the right points. But then again maybe Tessa is too cynical. “All I know was I was three when my mum died and seven when dad left me on my uncle’s doorstep. I wasn’t raised around wolves like you were, my mum's family are normal, I don’t know about territory rules, or born and bitten or the Council of Lycanthropy although that sounds bloody terrifying. All I know is you're toying with me, because you’ve already made your decision about me, so at least do the decent thing and kill me now.”

“Mum, he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong. If no one has taught him about being a wolf, don’t we owe him a chance to learn how to be a good one before we condemn him.” Tessa adds because she has to say something before her mum condemns. Before they take him to the far barn, reach into his chest and tear out his bloody heart. Then they will bury him under the barn with the others and they will come home to pour their tea, and no one will ever mention it again. Tessa has watched them do it before.

“This is not your decision Tessa.” Sally does not take her eyes off of Rye, “We must do what is best for the pack. Bringing a lone wolf, with a short fuse, into the pack means we are all at risk. It only takes one slip up from him and we are all doomed.”

“He won’t slip up.” Walter’s voice is smooth and calm, but it still surprises her. She never thought he would be the one to come to Rye’s defence. “He’s got too much control of his wolf for a lone wolf. Even now in our territory, faced with our pack, on a full moon he has complete control of the wolf. No yellow veins, gnarled claws, glowing eyes.”

“So, you think I should let him into the pack?”

Walter shuffles on his feet, glancing at Tessa. She’s the one who wants this, she can’t expect her brother to make the argument for her, to get in trouble with the alpha for her.

“I think he has better control than any of us, so we can’t use that as a reason against him.” She says the words quickly before the fear of standing against her alpha stops her. “We should at least find out why he has such control, use it to our advantage.”

“What about the camera?” Delilah looks like a cat about to pounce on a mouse as she slumps against the doorframe with a smile. “Walter told us all about Keri snapping photos of you last night. If you have such control of the wolf, how did you let Keri Webber of all people get photos of you?”

“There weren’t any photos of him on the camera.” Admits Walter with a sigh staring at his feet.

“I deleted them all last night when Keri first dropped the camera, that’s why I scared her so she would drop the camera and I could get it.”

“Doesn’t answer the question of why you were transformed not on the full moon.” Counters Sally.

After a very long pause Rye shrugged off her glare and stated, “It’s quicker and easier to explore in wolf form. An alpha like yourself should know that.”

Sally’s upper lip curls.

“I kept the secret this long.” Rye’s eyes are wide like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but then his voice turns steadier, and he lifts his chin. “Ten years by myself, living in the same house as humans and none of them found out. Yeah, sure they sent me to counselling and tried to get rid of me whenever they could, but I never let them find out what I was, because it's the only thing no one has ever been able to take away from me.”