Taming the Wolf King novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Hayloft

The howl stopped as suddenly as it started.

The Grey dropped back from the fence and walked away into the dark at the back of the pen.

He lay down with his back to us.

Caspian was still crouched by the wire.

His hands were fists on his knees.

"Cas?"

"I'm fine."

"You're shaking."

"It's cold."

It wasn't that cold.

Grandpa came up the hill with a flashlight, puffing.

"What in the world set him off? He hasn't howled like that since the night I brought him in."

"I don't know," Caspian said. "I'm sorry. I'll keep away from his pen."

He walked back down the hill without waiting for us.

The guest bed was full of Grandpa's tax boxes, so Caspian was sleeping in the hayloft.

He said wolves liked hay.

At eleven I climbed the ladder with two quilts and a thermos of cocoa, because I couldn't sleep, and because I knew he couldn't either.

He was lying on his back in the hay under the big loft door, which he'd swung open.

The sky was so full of stars it looked spilled.

"You'll freeze," I said.

"I don't freeze."

I threw a quilt on him and lay down next to him with the other one.

"Your grandfather likes me," he said.

"He made you muck pens for six hours."

"That's how I know."

I laughed.

He turned his head and looked at me.

The starlight made his eyes silver, but it was the good silver, not the wrong one.

"Tell me what he was like," I said. "Your father. Not the end. Before."

He was quiet so long I thought he wouldn't.

"Loud," he said finally. "He laughed so loud people turned around in restaurants. He couldn't sing and he sang anyway. He was the worst fisherman in Vermont. We'd sit out on the lake all day and catch nothing, and he'd say it was the best day of the year."

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