Taming the Wolf King novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: Expelled

Caspian was on his feet before the man finished reading.

The blanket fell off him.

His eyes went gold.

I felt it through the bond like a match struck in my chest.

"Cas," I said. "Hands."

He looked at me.

Then he put both hands flat on Grandpa's front window sill, and breathed.

The council man took a step back off the porch anyway.

"He's a King," I said to him through the broken glass. "Not a dog. Talk to me."

"Miss, I've got an order."

"I can see that. Where's he going?"

"The council cage room at Greyling. He's held there till the Blood Moon." He looked at the paper, not at me. "Then he's destroyed with the rest of the Coldwell stock."

Out in the yard, a second man was pulling a catch-pole off the truck.

It had a loop on the end.

The loop was lined with silver.

"No," I said.

I went out the front door barefoot.

"Nobody puts that on him," I said. "You want him in your cage, I'll put him in it."

"Miss, that animal's dangerous."

"That animal got carried out of a fire last night. Put the pole down."

The man with the pole looked at the man with the paper.

The man with the paper looked at Caspian in the window, with his gold eyes and his hands flat on the sill.

"Put it down," he said.

I went back inside.

The Grey was lying on the blanket where Caspian had left him.

I sat down with my back to him and held out a slice of apple over my shoulder.

After a while his nose took it.

"We're going for a ride," I said. "I'm not leaving you. I'll be right behind the truck."

I walked out across the yard without looking back.

He got up and followed me, slow and stiff.

He walked up the ramp into the cage on his own.

I shut the door.

Caspian came and stood beside me in Grandpa's blanket.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to.

I could feel it, all the way through me.

We followed the white trucks up the mountain in my pickup.

At the college gates, they went through.

We didn't.

The Dean was standing in the gateway in his gown.

Raife stood beside him in a dark wool coat, with two council guards.

Half the college was coming out of chapel and stopped on the path to watch.

I got out of the truck.

"Miss Coldwell," the Dean said.

He sounded very tired.

"The council has made a finding. Last night you took a student off the grounds and into a burning building. You took the King off the grounds into a fire."

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