Luna Lola: The Moon Wolf novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Order

I went to his study at midnight and didn't knock.

Caelen was standing at the window with his back to me, and the room smelled of cold ash and ink.

There was one lamp on.

It lit a desk, a wall of shelves and a small iron-bound drawer that was already pulled out.

"You were waiting for me," I said.

"Since the gate."

"Then you know what I'm going to ask."

"What white wolf," he said, turning around. "Yes."

He crossed to the desk and took something out of the drawer.

He set it in the lamplight between us.

It was a rifle round, bent and dull, with a star cut into the base.

"Three Octobers ago, a report came to Highmoor from the border post on the Ashfall side," he said.

"It said a white wolf, rabid, was killing sheep and heading for Crown land on the full moon."

"The report asked for a kill order before it reached the river."

"And you signed it."

"I did."

He said it quietly, and he didn't look away.

"The guard fired at the Black Fir bridge. They hit it in the back."

"It went into the water, and the current took it."

He touched the round with one finger.

"We found this in the bank the next morning, with blood on it. No body."

My mouth was dry.

"Silver in the back," I said. "On a full moon, three years ago, at the bridge."

"Yes."

"I was twenty-one. I woke up in the hayloft with a fever and a hole in me, and Dane said I'd fallen."

"I know that now."

"You knew it at the gate," I said. "You knew when you looked at my shoulder. You let me stand here for two days."

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