Luna Lola: The Moon Wolf novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Run

Harlan trained me in the walled orchard behind the hall, and he started with a rule.

"No thinking," he said. "Thinking is how you got locked out of your own wolf for twenty-four years."

"I wasn't locked out. I was told she didn't exist."

"Same thing from the inside."

He sat on an upturned crate with a thermos of coffee and watched me stand there with my eyes shut.

I tried for three days.

I tried begging, bargaining and being angry, and my wolf did not come.

On the fourth evening Harlan lost patience.

"Right," he said, and stood. "Caelen."

I opened my eyes.

Caelen was leaning against the orchard gate in his shirtsleeves.

I hadn't heard him come.

I hadn't been alone with him once since the study.

"What is he doing here?"

"Your wolf is shy of me," Harlan said. "She isn't shy of him."

"Harlan."

"She came out once on her own, in the mud, with eight rifles on her. I'd rather she came out when you've practiced."

He picked up his thermos and left us standing in the orchard with the apple trees going dark.

Caelen pushed off the gate.

"I won't touch you," he said. "I'll just be here."

"That's not training."

"It is if your wolf's listening."

He started to unbutton his shirt.

I looked at the apples.

"I'll shift first," he said. "You don't have to. Just watch."

When I looked back, a huge black wolf stood in the grass with a silver patch on his chest.

His eyes were the same grey-green.

He lay down on the grass with his chin on his paws and waited.

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