No Longer Luna novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Her Own Gate

At ten the next morning, I drove myself to the moon gate in my own car.

It was a dented blue hatchback with a clinic parking sticker on the windshield, and it had never been in a motorcade.

Rhys had offered me the white limousine.

He'd sent it to Fernbank at nine, with a driver in a Saltmere pin.

I had thanked the driver and sent him home.

My mother sat in the passenger seat with her handbag on her knees.

"You're sure?" she said.

"I'm sure."

"You look beautiful."

"I look like a woman in a dress her mother hemmed."

"That's what I said."

I laughed, and my hands were steady on the wheel.

Sunlight lay over the Saltmere lawn.

The torches were gone, and the grass was wet and bright, and the gate stood at the far end with its roses open in the morning.

There was no crowd of four hundred this time.

My father stood by the hedge in a suit that no longer fit him.

Boyd leaned on his cane, and the Cinderfell Alpha had stayed at his own border.

A few dozen wolves from both packs stood back on the grass, the ones who had asked to come.

I parked on the gravel, and my mother got out first and straightened my skirt.

Then she kissed my cheek and went to stand with my father.

I walked across the lawn alone.

Rhys waited at the foot of the gate.

He wore a plain white shirt and no jacket.

His arm was bandaged to the elbow, and his hair was still wet from the shower.

He didn't move.

He watched me come, and his face was entirely unguarded.

I stopped ten feet away.

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