Substitute Luna, Runaway With His Quadruplets novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Market Day

Gideon shouts her down in front of the whole market until Maud swings a wheel of cheese; then Joanna finds that someone in the Moon Hall opened Nora's scan.

On Saturday morning, Gideon found me at Maud's cheese stall in the middle of Haldane's farmers' market.

I was wrapping a wedge of goat cheddar for a woman in a fleece vest.

Maud was across the aisle haggling over eggs.

I heard the pack before I saw them.

Seven wolves in good boots came down the row between the apple crates, and the humans stepped out of their way without knowing why.

Gideon walked in front.

"There she is," he said, loud enough for the stalls on both sides. "The Luna of nothing."

The woman in the fleece took her cheese and left.

"Gideon," I said. "I'm working."

"You're thieving." He stopped at the edge of the table. "Our mother's pearls. They were in the Luna's drawer. Where are they?"

"On the dresser, where I left them. I took my clothes and a coat."

"Priscilla says they're missing."

I looked at him.

Priscilla had been in the Luna's rooms for exactly one day.

"Then look in her room," I said.

He slapped a hand down on the table and the cheese jumped.

"You lived on our name for twenty-six years. You ate our food, took our blood and let my father call you his daughter. Say it. Say you're sorry, here, to all of us."

Behind him the wolves had spread out across the aisle.

A pack woman I had taught to knit stood at the back with her eyes on her shoes.

A teenage boy had his phone up.

Gideon wanted a crowd, and he had one.

I wiped my hands on my apron.

"I'm sorry I didn't know," I said. "I'm not sorry I was a baby."

Somebody behind him made a small sound.

"I was a day old," I said. "I didn't sign a paper. I didn't pick a family. If you want to shout at the person who carried me home from the clinic and called me his, he's three miles up the mountain with a glass of whiskey."

"Don't talk about my father."

"He's my father too. He just stopped."

The boy with the phone lowered it an inch.

Gideon came around the end of the table.

I knew that walk.

It was the one he used on rogue wolves and drunk men outside the Moon Hall bar.

He took hold of my wrist and squeezed.

"Come on. You're coming to the Hall to apologize to Priscilla on your knees."

"Let go."

"Make me."

My hands were cold.

They are always cold, but they were colder than usual because I was angry, and the skin of his hand against mine began to turn white.

Frost crawled out from under my fingers and up the back of his knuckles, in thin, bright lines.

Gideon looked down.

He let go so fast he knocked the table.

"What did you do?" He shook his hand out hard. "What was that?"

"I don't know," I said, and it was the truth. "It's winter. It's a cold table."

"It's not a cold table, it's a trick. She's wolfless and she's doing tricks."

"Nobody here is doing tricks, Gideon," a voice said behind him. "Except you."

Maud walked up through the wolves with a full wheel of aged cheddar held in both hands.

She is seventy-four. She doesn't weigh a hundred and twenty pounds.

Her braids were pinned up under her cap and she was breathing hard from the stairs.

"Grandma," Gideon said.

"Don't you grandma me, boy."

She brought the cheese down on his shoulder.

It was a good swing. It landed with a loud, flat thud.

The humans at the next stall clapped.

Gideon staggered a step and gaped at her.

"You hit me with dairy."

"I'll hit you with the whole goat if you put your hand on my girl again."

"She isn't your girl. She isn't even ours."

"She's the only one of you who's called me every Sunday since she was nine." Maud set the cheese back on the table with a thump. "Go home, Gideon. Take your friends. You're frightening the tourists."

He stood there with his jaw working.

Then he pointed at me.

"The Alpha will hear about this. He's calling you to the Hall Monday. You're charged with fraud against the pack. You'll stand there and answer."

"I'll be there," I said.

He turned and went, and the seven wolves went after him.

The boy with the phone ran to catch up. He looked back once, quickly, at my hands.

The market started again around us, slowly. A man two stalls down began shouting the price of pumpkins.

Maud put her arm around my shoulders.

"You're shaking."

"I'm furious," I said.

"Good. Fury keeps you warm."

My phone rang in my apron pocket.

JOANNA.

"Hi, are you done with the cheese yet?"

"Nora," Joanna said. She was not laughing. "Where are you right now?"

"At the stall. Why?"

"I just checked the clinic server log. Somebody opened your scan file at six this morning."

"Who? Your nurse?"

"No." Her voice was flat. "The login came from the Moon Hall."

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