Luna Lola: The Moon Wolf novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Free to Go

"I signed it without checking one line," Caelen said.

"The report came through Ashfall's border post, and I didn't ask who wrote it."

"The guard shot the wolf in the back at the Black Fir bridge."

"That wolf was Wynne Tarrant, and I have known it for weeks."

Nobody on the benches made a sound.

An elder in the front row put his hand over his eyes.

"You are the heir to the Alpha King," the old woman said, very quietly. "Do you understand what you've just put in the record?"

"I understand it."

"You've admitted to ordering the death of an innocent."

"Yes."

"Then why say it now, in front of the west?"

"Because the next report has the same shape," Caelen said, "and someone in this room is counting on you to believe it."

He didn't look at Ilsa.

He didn't have to.

Her father had gone a dark, patchy red, and Ilsa's hand had stopped moving on her notebook.

The old woman rapped the gavel, though no one was talking.

"The council will inquire into the sheep."

"The Moon Wolf has no pack, and by our own law no pack may hold her."

"So the Crown cannot lock her up."

"The Crown can ask her to remain inside Highmoor's walls until the full moon."

Every head turned to me.

I stood up, and my knees held.

"No," I said.

"Wynne," Caelen said, low.

"No. I've been shot, lied to and drained."

"I've sat in a hall while strangers decided what to do with me, and I'm not sitting in this one."

"I'll go where I like."

The old woman looked at me for a long moment, and then she nodded once.

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