No Longer Luna novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Beta's Ring

Calista said it all again, from the beginning, because the Cinderfell Alpha asked her to.

She didn't cry this time.

She stood in the middle of the council hall with one glove on, and she told it in a flat voice, start to finish.

The Alpha listened with his hands behind him and his eyes on the floor.

When she finished, he turned his head toward the doors.

"Bring him in."

Two Cinderfell wolves came down the aisle with Lowell Drummond between them.

His silver hair was matted and his black suit was torn at the shoulder.

They had found him at the border, in a car, with his daughter's suitcases in the trunk.

He didn't look at Calista.

He looked at the Alpha, and then at Boyd, and when he saw me his mouth pulled back from his teeth.

"Alpha," he said. "Whatever the girl has told you, she's confused. She's been unwell for weeks."

"She is standing right here," the Alpha said.

"She's hysterical. She's been put up to this by the warden."

"Papa," Calista said.

"Be quiet."

"Papa, I told them about the gloves."

For the first time Lowell turned and looked at her, and I saw something go out of her face.

It had been there my whole time in the hall, a sort of braced hope.

It went all at once.

"You stupid girl," her father said quietly. "I told you what it would cost."

"That is enough," the Cinderfell Alpha said.

He crossed the floor and took Lowell's right hand in both of his own.

The wolf-head ring on Lowell's finger had been in his family for three generations.

The Alpha twisted it off, and it came free with a tearing sound, and Lowell cried out.

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