Luna Lola: The Moon Wolf novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Stand With Me

Caelen gave me the bent silver round on the morning of the solstice.

He put it in my palm in the study at Highmoor.

Snow fell past the window, and Maud's biscuit crumbs lay all over the desk.

"I kept it three years," he said. "I never told anyone why."

"Why?"

"So I'd remember what I'd signed."

I turned it over.

The star on the base had gone dull.

"Throw it in the river, if you want," he said. "I won't ask where it went."

I thought about it.

"No," I said. "Keep it in the drawer. But next time a report comes in about a white wolf, you read it twice."

"There won't be a white wolf."

"There's always a report."

He laughed, and kissed my forehead, and put the round back where it had always been.

Then he helped me with my boots.

We drove to Ashfall in four trucks, with half of Highmoor behind us.

I had asked for the Stone, and the council had argued about it for nine weeks.

In the end Maud settled it.

She said a Moon Wolf could be crowned on a kitchen floor if she liked, and this one liked the Stone.

The meadow was white with snow.

Wolves stood on every slope of it, and their breath smoked in the cold.

There were Crown wolves and Ashfall wolves, and the western packs in their dark coats.

Ilsa's father stood at the front of the Cold Harbor wolves with his hat in his hands.

He had written to Caelen twice in nine weeks.

He had not written to his daughter, and nobody knew where she was.

The Beta waited at the foot of the granite slab in his best coat.

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