The Ugly Luna He Never Saw novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Boathouse Dock

Niko shut the door on Orvo's smile and stood with his forehead against the wood.

"Ninety names," he said. "Face to face. In full light."

"You do it every day."

"With Ilmari at my ear and a coffee cup in front of his mouth." He laughed, once, with nothing funny in it. "I'll find a way."

I put my hand between his shoulder blades.

He was warm and rigid as a tree.

"Come to bed," he said.

I did, and lay awake beside him until midnight, listening to him not sleep.

At twelve I got up and put my coat on over nothing but my shirt.

The pack's long dock ran out from the boathouse, a hundred feet of grey planks over the black water, and nobody used it after dark.

I sat on the very end with my boots dangling.

The moon had gone thin and bright, and the lake smelled of ice.

I heard him before I saw him, the heavy slow walk coming down the shore path, and I didn't turn around.

He sat down beside me, and for a minute neither of us spoke.

"Seven years ago," I said, "a rogue came onto the lake road."

He went still.

"I was nineteen. I was walking home from the hall. A little boy had wandered out of the bonfire. I didn't think. He was five, and it was a big grey wolf with its head low, and it was going to take him."

My voice came out flat and steady.

"I got between them. I didn't shift. I'd never been fast to shift. I put my arm up, and it took my face instead."

His hand found mine on the plank.

"My hair went grey before the doctor finished stitching. The boy was fine. He was Sanna's brother. He's twelve now."

"Nobody thanked you," Niko said.

It wasn't a question.

"They said I was careless. That a real wolf would have changed. I haven't shifted since. My wolf won't come."

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