Eighth-Born Luna novel · Chapter 4 of 16

Chapter 4: My Mother's Face

Two warriors started toward me.

Kieran didn't move.

He just looked at them.

They stopped.

"Nobody touches her," he said.

He turned and held out his hand to me, palm up.

"Rosalie. May I?"

Nobody had ever asked me for anything.

I pulled the chain over my head and put the locket in his hand.

He opened it with his thumb.

Inside, my father grinned with his arm around my mother.

Her hair fell past her shoulders, long and pale as frost.

Kieran frowned at the picture.

"That's your mother?"

"Selene Ashdown," I said. "She died when I was twelve. Rogues on the north road."

"Give it to me," Genevieve snapped, reaching.

Kieran lifted it out of her reach without looking at her.

"If it's yours," he said, "tell me what's engraved on the back."

Genevieve opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

"For the eighth," I said quietly. "It says, for the eighth. I never knew what it meant."

Kieran turned it over.

He read it.

Then he looked at me for a long moment.

"What is going on here?"

The voice came from the top of the ravine.

Every wolf on that slope dropped to one knee.

Alpha King Garrett came down the bank with his guards behind him.

He was older up close. Silver in his beard, deep lines around his eyes.

"Father." Kieran held out the locket.

The King took it. He glanced at the picture.

Then he stopped walking.

The color drained out of his face.

"Selene," he said.

He looked up at me.

He looked at my face, and my eyes, and he took a step closer.

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