Eighth-Born Luna novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: The Black Wolf

Kieran pulls her out of the ravine and calls her his, but Tristan's warriors arrive and Genevieve accuses her of stealing the locket at her throat.

I ran faster than I had ever run in my life.

It wasn't fast enough.

The black wolf didn't even sound tired.

The ground tilted under me.

My foot caught a root at the lip of a ravine, and I pitched forward into nothing.

I hit the slope and rolled.

Rocks, roots, cold air, then colder water.

The creek at the bottom closed over my head.

It was snowmelt, fast and freezing.

The current dragged me along the stones and I couldn't find which way was up.

Teeth closed on the back of my dress.

Something hauled me out and dropped me on the bank.

I coughed up half the creek.

When I could see again, the black wolf was standing over me, dripping.

Then it wasn't a wolf.

Bones shifted. Fur drew back into skin.

The prince crouched on the stones in the moonlight, breathing hard, soaked jeans and nothing else.

He pulled a coat from a pack strapped to his shoulder and threw it over me.

It was warm. It smelled like smoke and cedar.

It smelled like him.

"You run like something's been chasing you your whole life," he said.

"It has." My teeth were chattering. "Please. Don't take me back."

"I didn't jump a wall to take you back."

He reached out and tilted my chin into the light.

His jaw went hard when he saw the cheek.

"Who did this?"

I didn't answer.

"Who?"

"My mate," I said. "My old mate. He rejected me tonight."

"And you let him walk away with his teeth?"

"I tried to reject him back." I hated how small my voice was. "He hit me before I could finish."

The prince went very still.

His nostrils flared once, and something dark moved behind his eyes.

"I can smell him on you," he said quietly. "The bond. It's still there. You never cut it."

"He told me I didn't have the right."

"He used his Alpha voice on you to keep you tied to him." His hand closed into a fist on his knee. "While he stood next to someone else."

I nodded.

He breathed out slowly.

"My name is Kieran."

"I know who you are. You're the King's son."

"Say it anyway."

"Kieran."

Something went soft in his face.

Nyx purred, loud and shameless.

"What's your name?"

"Rosalie. Rosalie Ashdown. I'm nobody. I'm the kitchen Omega."

"You're the first wolf in fourteen years who didn't flinch away from me."

He leaned in until I could feel the heat of him through the wet coat.

"So you're not nobody," he said. "You're mine."

The word went straight through me.

Then torches bloomed along the top of the ravine.

Dozens of them.

"Down there!" Hugh's voice. "By the creek!"

Warriors poured down the slope in human form, knives out.

Tristan came behind them with Genevieve on his arm, her silver gown hitched up out of the mud.

Kieran stood, and put himself between me and all of them.

The warriors at the front stumbled to a stop.

Some of them actually stepped backward.

I didn't understand it until I felt it too.

Power was rolling off him. Heavy. Crushing.

Every wolf on that slope wanted to be somewhere else.

Except me.

"Your Highness." Tristan bowed his head a fraction. "That girl belongs to my pack. Hand her over and we'll handle her quietly."

"Handle her how?" Kieran asked. "The way you handled her face?"

Tristan's eyes flicked to me.

"She's a servant who ran off in the middle of a royal ceremony. She's disturbed. She always has been."

"She's also a thief."

Genevieve stepped forward, lip trembling, eyes wet and wide.

She pointed at my throat.

"That locket is mine," she said. "It was our mother's, and she left it to me. Rosalie's been stealing it out of my jewelry box for years."

The warriors muttered.

My fingers closed around the locket.

It was the only thing I'd carried out of the car the night my parents died.

"Search her," Genevieve said. "She's wearing it right now."

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