The Luna Queen's Rebirth novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Mine to Choose

I went down to him before moonrise, but not alone.

Rhydian walked one pace behind my left shoulder with a hand on his sword.

Every lord of Hollowmark lined the wall above us with a bow.

Leoric's two hundred sat their horses in the rain.

He dismounted at the barbican and stood there in mud to his ankles, with his circlet crooked.

"You brought him," he said.

"I brought my husband."

"I told you to come alone."

"You told me a great many things."

He flinched. It was small, but I saw it.

"Seraphine." He lowered his voice. "I'm asking you. As the man who loved you."

"The man who handed Perdita a torch?"

He blinked.

"What torch?"

It slipped out before I could stop it. My stomach turned over.

He had no idea what I meant, because it had not happened yet.

He never would know, unless I told him.

"Nothing," I said. "A bad dream. You're not asking, Leoric. You're threatening Hollowmark's villages with Aldermere's riders in front of thirty lords."

"I will do what I must."

"Then do it. Burn them. In front of all of us."

The silence stretched.

The lords above us waited, and Leoric's riders waited, and the rain hissed on the stones.

Perdita sat on her pony beyond the line of horses, her hood up, her face turned toward me.

She didn't look worried. She looked like she was watching a play she had seen before.

Leoric's jaw worked.

"You were meant to be my Luna."

"I was meant to be a lot of things."

"I gave you everything."

"You gave me a vial and a torch," I said, "in a dream you don't remember. I'm not coming back."

His face changed.

The weakness drained out of it.

What came up behind was old and ugly and entitled, a man who had never been told no by anything he owned.

"Then you'll come back dead."

He ripped his sword free and lunged.

I had expected it. I'd watched him do the same thing to a stable boy once, in another life.

I stepped inside the blade, drew my silver knife and let the wolf out.

The change took two heartbeats. Fur ripped through leather. I hit the mud on four legs and the world sharpened into scent and sound.

Leoric tried to shift.

Everyone saw him try.

His shoulders buckled and his spine bowed, and his gold wolf came halfway up and caught like a bone in his throat.

He stumbled, still half a man, half a ruined beast.

I hit him in the chest and drove him down.

He screamed. He got a hand up and clawed at my face, and I felt the sting of blood along my muzzle.

I sank my teeth into his shoulder.

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