Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 34 of 48

Chapter 34: The Luna of the Hundred Winters

The old healer told it in the dark, with her hands folded on top of her stick.

"The old men tell it as a wedding story," she said. "A Luna who marked her Alpha back, a hundred winters ago. You heard it in the hall the night you did it yourself."

"I heard it once," I said. "I didn't know there was more."

"There's always more. The old men leave out the part that frightens the children."

Ronan stood by the window with his back to us, bare to the waist.

He'd said nothing since the knock.

"The valley had a white Luna then," the healer said. "The last white before your mother. Her Alpha took a silver wound at the border, a bite from a wolf who'd been taught to fight with it, the same as you, Ronan. It started in his hand."

"The same sickness," I said.

"It was called a plague then. Nobody understood the cause."

She stared into the cold fireplace.

"The Luna had marked him in return, so the bond ran both ways. A bond that runs both ways is a door. She found she could reach through the door and pull the gray out of him, and draw it into her own blood."

"And burn it," I said.

"A white wolf's blood burns silver. It's why the white Lunas were so prized. She took it into herself and went out into the night in her wolf's shape and ran. She ran until the burn cleared the gray out of her."

The healer's mouth worked.

"But the gray was in a man grown, and it had a year's growth on it. It was more than one body could burn."

"What happened?"

"Her pack was afraid."

She said it very plainly.

"They'd seen what the gray did to the wolves who touched it. They thought it would jump from her to the children. So on the night of her run, every door in the valley was shut. Every one. The cottages, the barns, the dormitory. Nobody would stand at a window to see her pass."

I could see it.

I could see the long valley under the moon with every shutter closed, and a white wolf alone in the road.

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