Luna Paige's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Luna set both hands flat on her knees. The silver wolf had not moved from her leg. Michael waited across the low table, the dried petal between them like evidence in a courtroom. She had one chance to say something true enough to keep her seat in this parlor. "My name is Luna Paige," she said. "I'm not anyone's cousin. I walked here from the fae wood." Michael's jaw tightened. He did not interrupt. "There's a curse on me," she said. "An old one. It locked me in this shape." She lifted her hands, turned them over, and set them down again. "I wasn't born a woman. I was born a wolf." He made a small sound, not quite a laugh. "Prove it." "I can't. That's the curse. If I could prove it, I wouldn't need the flower." She nodded at the pale bloom on the side table. "Moonpetal breaks glamour. I traded my mother's ring for one bloom and one book, because I needed to understand what happened to you before I tried to fix what happened to me." "What happened to me," Michael repeated. "The wolf at your feet." Her voice caught. She pushed through. "He crossed the border stones the day you did. I know him. He was pack." Michael looked down. The silver wolf's ribs pressed against Luna's knee, steady, warm. He had not growled once. "He knew me the moment I walked in," Luna said. "You saw it. That's why you let me stay past the first ten minutes." "I let you stay because you asked about the boots." His mouth twitched, then flattened. "Keep going." "The claim on you will hold three or four weeks and lift on its own. I read that in the book. I wasn't lying about the book being useful. I was lying about being a stranger to it." She swallowed. "I came to save you because saving you helps me learn how to save myself. That's the whole truth. I'm sorry I dressed it up." He was quiet a long time. The clock on the mantel ticked through it. Outside, the willow moved against the tall windows of his mansion. "You're a wolf," he said finally. "I was." "And him." He looked at the silver head resting on her thigh. "My brother. I think." Michael sat back. He rubbed his face with both hands. When he lowered them, he looked younger and more tired. "I don't know if I believe you," he said. "But he does. And he hasn't been wrong yet." He nodded at the wolf. "You can stay in the east room. Tonight only. In the morning you take me to the crossroads and show me the woman who sold you that flower." Luna breathed out. Her hands shook against her knees. She had bought one more day. She had also promised to walk a suspicious man to the edge of the fae wood, and she had no idea what the herb woman would say when he arrived asking questions.