The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Unbound

Behind Elden, something hit the floor.

Annalise was on her knees on the parquet in her silver gown.

Her hands were flat on the floor. Her hair had fallen over her face.

She hadn't decided to do it. I could see that from across the room.

Elden looked back at her over his shoulder.

Then he looked at me again, and for one second he wasn't smiling.

"Huh," he said.

The whisper started at the tables nearest us.

I heard it go around the hall.

Unbound.

Then another word, louder, from somewhere by the bar.

Rogue.

My father put his glass down very carefully.

Elden straightened his cuffs.

"Get up, sweetheart," he said to Annalise, in his ordinary voice, and she got up.

She didn't brush off her gown. She just stood where she'd been put.

Warrick's hand closed around my arm above the elbow.

"We're leaving," he said.

"I can walk."

"I know. Walk faster."

We went out through the side door into the rain, and nobody stopped us.

Nobody said goodbye either.

The hotel was three blocks down the hill.

Warrick walked past the elevator without looking at it.

"Elevators move," he said.

"So do stairs. You just do the moving."

"That's the difference."

We climbed. My room was on five, his on six.

On the landing between three and four, my legs quit.

I sat down on the step with my back against the cold wall.

He sat two steps below me so his head was at my level.

"Tell me," I said.

He rubbed his face with both hands.

"When a pup has her first full moon, the Luna speaks her name into the roll. You know that part."

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