The Ugly Luna He Never Saw novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Hands, Not Eyes

I walked off the dock without a word and he let me.

He followed me up the lawn at a distance, and I heard every step.

In the lodge I stood in the dark study with my arms wrapped around myself and the stupidest thought in my head.

Nobody had ever looked at me and liked it, and now one man could not look at me at all.

"Say something," he said from the doorway.

"You picked a smell." My voice cracked. "You didn't pick me. You picked cedar and cold water."

"Every wolf picks by smell."

"Don't."

"It's true." He came in and shut the door. "Your nose knows before your eyes do. That's what the bond is. Everybody in that hall who stared at your face had already chosen with their noses, and they didn't like what it told them, so they looked for a reason."

I wanted to argue.

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the big oak desk, so his face was almost level with mine.

"I'll tell you what I see," he said. "You want it? A shape. A woman-shaped person, smoke-grey on top, because colour holds. That's all. No eyes, no mouth. The parts won't stay together."

"And then what?"

"Then you talk," he said, "and the shape turns into you."

My eyes stung.

"That's the only way anyone's ever been real to me. By voice and step and smell and the way they breathe. You think it's less than a face. Let me show you it isn't."

He took my hand and put it flat on his chest.

"Sit up on the desk."

I climbed up, knees together.

He stood between them.

He took my face in his hands, one on each side, and his thumbs rested against my cheekbones.

"Close your eyes."

I did.

His fingertips began to move.

They traced my forehead slowly.

They went down my nose, and over my lips, which parted.

"A little crooked on the left," he said softly. "The top lip is fuller. You bite the inside of it when you're thinking. It's rough there."

His thumb crossed my cheek and reached the ridge of the first scar.

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