The Luna He Failed to Protect novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: Teeth

I'd known he would say it.

I'd known it since the gorge.

A man who'll leave eleven wolves to die will say anything at all.

Knowing didn't help.

The heat went up my neck to the roots of my hair.

It had done that at the oath dinner, when Morwenna read my letter to two hundred wolves.

Every face in the hall was on me.

Some of them were wondering.

I could smell it.

On the left side of the floor, Cale had gone so still he wasn't breathing.

The cook had a hand on his arm.

I didn't look at either of them.

I looked at Garth.

"An hour ago," I said, "a rogue bit you in the gorge."

He opened his mouth.

"You stood on that stone with your hand on your heart," I said, "and told this pack a rogue took that bite two springs ago, while you fought until you couldn't lift your arms."

Somebody on the benches laughed.

It was short, and ugly, and not at me.

"Now it was me," I said. "In your quarters. My first month. Which is it, Commander?"

He didn't answer.

He'd told two stories to one room, and he'd only just heard himself do it.

"You don't have to pick," I said. "I'll put it on the record myself."

I turned to the elder.

"Call the healer."

The pack healer came down out of the benches.

She was a broad, gray-haired woman who had set my broken wrist when I was eleven and given me a honey drop after.

She'd brought her bag.

She knew why she'd been called.

Everyone did.

A wolf's bite is matched tooth by tooth at the Moon Court.

It was the oldest kind of proof the pack had.

The healer took a cake of beeswax out of her bag and warmed it between her palms over the moon fire.

When it was soft she held it out to me.

I stood in the white light and bit down into it.

I bit like I had in the stone house.

I let my jaw half change, so the hall could see the teeth come.

Then I let go.

The healer held up the wax.

Two curved rows of holes.

"Commander," said the elder. "Your glove."

Garth didn't move.

"Take it off, or I'll have it taken off."

The boy on the gate had come forward from the doors.

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