When the Luna Walked Away novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Bait

"Go around, Raine," I said.

She laughed and went back to Tarran's truck.

The Blood Moon wolves turned and walked back down the road, slow, taking their time about it.

I didn't watch them go.

I watched Thane.

He was watching the envoy's back, and his face told me nothing.

That was the answer.

If Raine had been lying, he'd have laughed at her.

"Inside," I said. "Now."

My mother's house had one big room downstairs with a fireplace you could stand in.

The cook took Robin into the kitchen without a word and shut the door behind her.

Thane stood by the cold fireplace with his hands in his pockets.

I stood in the middle of the floor.

"Tell me," I said.

"Ilsa."

"You told me the first morning you don't lie. So don't start now. Tell me."

He was quiet for a long breath.

Then he told me.

"Her name was never said aloud in my house after she died," he said. "She was my mate for four years. Nine years ago the Blood Moon took her off the north road on her way home from her sister's. They left her where I'd find her."

His voice didn't change at all.

That was the worst part.

"Their Alpha's never come at me himself. He sends envoys and rogues and men in long coats. He takes what's mine and he waits for me to come find him in his own country, where he's strongest. I won't do it."

"So you needed him to come out."

"Yes."

"And what brings a wolf like that out of his hole?"

He looked straight at me.

"A new mate," he said. "A King's new mate, sitting on the soft border, where he could reach her."

I felt it go through me.

"Bait."

"Yes."

"You put your teeth in me so they'd come for me."

"Yes. I marked you on that porch because you were the right woman in the right place with the right enemies. Crale's Luna, in Redfern, pregnant, alone. I'd have done it to anyone standing there."

He didn't soften it.

He didn't reach for me.

"Every night since, I've had wolves in the trees around you," he said. "Every night. At the pack house, at the Fair, here. That wasn't love either. That was a trap with you in the middle of it."

My hands were fists.

"And last night?"

"Last night," he said, "I'd have burned the North to keep you out of it."

"When?"

"When did it change?" He almost laughed. "You smashed the moonflower on his step. I was on the roof. I watched you do it. I think that was the start of the trouble."

"That was before you bit me."

"I know."

"So you knew. Before you bit me. That you'd..."

"No. I knew I liked you. I bit you anyway, for the border." His jaw worked. "I stopped meaning it the night you drank the cup alone. And I've been trying to work out how to tell you for seven weeks, and I didn't, because I'm a coward about exactly one thing."

I crossed the room and hit him in the chest with both fists.

He let me.

I hit him again.

He let me do that too.

"I'd have said yes," I shouted. "On that porch. If you'd said it straight. If you'd said, I need you to stand in the middle of my trap, I'd have said yes to keep my son's heart beating!"

"I know."

"You don't get to decide what I'm for!"

"I know."

"Stop saying I know!"

He caught both my wrists in one hand.

Not to stop me.

To hold me there.

"Then tell me what you are," he said, rough. "You decide. I'll live with it."

I looked up at him.

At the scar on his collarbone, where his sweater had pulled.

At the dark eyes that hadn't once looked away from me since the porch.

"I'm not your bait," I said. "From now on I'm your partner in it. You tell me every move before you make it. Every wolf you put in my trees, I know where he's standing. When the Blood Moon comes for me, I'll be the one who's ready."

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