Shattered Sanctuary: The First Luna's Severance novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What Agnes Knew

Agnes wrapped the bruised wrist in a cold compress without a single question.

She did it at her kitchen table, in the little cottage behind the clinic, with the window open to the evening.

"Edmund came by," she said. "He talked for forty minutes and didn't say what he meant."

"He's careful."

"He's frightened." Agnes tied the cloth off. "So am I. Sit still."

She went to the dresser and came back with a flat tin box.

Inside lay a single photograph, soft with age.

A dark-haired woman with Rosalind's green eyes laughed at the camera with a baby on her hip.

"Your mother," Agnes said. "The year you were born."

Rosalind touched the edge of the picture.

"I know what she looked like."

"You don't know what she was." Agnes sat down heavily. "Elspeth was Moon-touched. The last one of the old line. Her mother was, and hers, back to when the first packs came to these mountains."

"Moon-touched means she saw things."

"It means the Goddess's light ran in her blood. In a wolf like that, the mate bond is a river, not a thread." Agnes held her gaze. "Whoever she mates with drinks from her. Their wolf grows. Their Alpha voice grows. And it stays strong as long as she is bonded to him."

Rosalind did not move.

"You're the last of it now, child," Agnes said. "You're the only one left."

"I have no gift. I never did."

"You have the oldest gift there is. You just never knew it had a use."

The kettle began to whistle, and Agnes didn't get up.

"Dalton was a strong boy," she said. "Not a great one. Your mother knew it the day she met him, and she begged me never to tell you until you were ready, because she thought you'd pity him."

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