Luna Lola: The Moon Wolf novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Given, Not Taken

Caelen hit me in the side with his whole body, and the round went into him instead.

We landed on the floor in a heap of blankets and broken glass.

The shot cracked a half second after, flat and far away, from the orchard.

"Down," he said, in a voice that didn't sound right.

He rolled over me, and I felt his weight go heavy and strange.

Warm wetness spread across my ribs.

"Caelen."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. Caelen, look at me."

He looked at me.

His face was grey.

There was a hole high in his chest, on the left side, below the collarbone, and the flesh around it was already blackening in veins.

Silver.

The same kind of wound as mine, an arm's length from his heart.

I put both hands over it, and the blood came up hot between my fingers.

"Don't you do this," I said. "Don't you dare. I only just said yes."

"I'd noticed," he said, and coughed. "I'd have liked to hear it a few more times."

"Shut up."

"That's not very queenly."

"I'm not a queen. I'm a woman with her hands in your chest, and you're going to stay awake."

Boots pounded on the stairs, and the door crashed back against the wall.

Harlan stood there, breathing hard, with a rifle of his own.

"I got him," he said. "Orchard wall. I'll tell you in a minute. Is he..."

He saw Caelen, and his face fell apart.

"Get the healer," I said.

"Wynne..."

"Get her, and then get out."

He went.

The bond was a thin cold thread in my chest, thinner than it had been an hour ago.

I could feel his heart through it, stumbling.

Silver in the blood poisons a wolf in minutes, and no healer in the Crown could pull it out in time.

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