Page 44 of Moonmarked

Her hair fell on her breasts, covering her, but I doubted she’d mind even if it hadn’t. Then she stepped back and began to shift. Keeping my eyes open and on her was difficult, but I really wanted to see this, to remember. The sound of her bones rearranging and the fur piercing her skin as it came out was in my ears. The rhythm of her heartbeat, the single beat it skipped in that moment just before she became a full wolf—it matched my own.

Then she was there, the wolf. She was right in front of me as if Maera had never been.

Tears pooled in my eyes again when I fell to my kneesto look at her. “Hey there, pretty girl,” I said, and maybe it would be silly to Maera who could definitely hear me, but it came naturally to me. The wolf came closer, pink tongue hanging out. She was so much smaller than those wolves who still stood guard between us and Raja, but she was fierce. The look in her eyes—that’swhat still set her apart.

“Thanks again, for…you know. Everything. This wound, too.” I pulled up my sleeve and gasped to find that the four scratches were almost completely gone. My skin was a little red—that’s it. Not broken, not open, just a little red.

“Holy shit, it’s gone,” I whispered, and the wolf came closer and licked my skin just like she had done before. Ifeltthe calm that came with it, like it was a fucking medicine or something.

“Until next time, pretty girl,” I said and touched the sides of her neck, scratched her, still half convinced that she was a dog.

And then she licked my cheek, too. I laughed—it was so unexpected. It felt exactly like that kiss on the forehead from Maera.

When I stood up, my heart was full even if it made no sense. My legs shook and the exhaustion was still there—we’d walked for a long time—and I was hungry and my limbs were weak. but I could make it to Raja. She was just there. I could make it to her house.

The wolves moved aside to let us through. Maera’s wolf walked by my side for a little while, then stopped, whined a little, as if to saybye.I blew her a kiss and waved, at her and the other wolves who watched me with those wide attentive eyes.

I continued on my own like a drunk, but I was moving, getting closer to Raja, able to see her face with clarity now.And when I was just a few feet away from her, the wolves howled.

The sound was haunting, breathtaking, something a part of me understood even if I didn’t know how to put it in words. They howled, all four of them, sitting on their back legs, muzzles to the sky, and they didn’t stop until I did. Until I locked eyes with Raja. Until her face brought back memories of the last time I was here, how safe I’d felt with Rune.

My knees shook.

“By Reme, what have you done?”

Raja’s voice was barely a whisper as she looked down at my body.

“N-Nothing,” I whispered. “I didn’t do anything. Raja, I need to talk to Rune. Please, can you tell him I’m here? With…with your shadows.” I looked at her hands, but the shadows were no longer there. Instead, she looked at me like I was a damn ghost.

“You have moon magic in you, girl.Whathave you done?!”

This time, she sounded terrified.

I’d seen what this woman could do with my own eyes, had felt her magic. And for her to beterrifiedof something—that was no small thing.

“I don’t…” I turned to look at the wolves, still there, still watching, all standing, though they’d stopped howling now. “I don’t know, I…”

Hands on my wrist.

Raja pulled my arm and turned it, looked down at what was left of the wound on my skin, so I looked, too. And I saw.

I saw the way my skinglowedfrom within.

It was faint, but the night was dark and the moon wasstill in the sky—I felt it behind me—and my skin had this glow to it. A silvery white glow.

Which couldn’t possibly be because people didn’t glow. They just didn’t, so I must have been seeing things. Perfectly possible, considering I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been asleep or passed out.

“Raja,” I said, and my tongue felt so, sothick. “Raja, I need to…Rune, I need…”Rune.

My body let go of me all at once, my mind shutting down even when my instincts insisted that I needed to stay awake now more than ever. There simply was no more energy left in me.

Everything went dark.

fourteen

I knewthe ceiling of the room I woke up in. I knew the three horizontal windows on the opposite wall, and the wooden door just past the edge of the twin bed I lay in. The door that was now half open.

The sky was blue beyond the windows, a deep blue, which meant the day had already started—and it was about to end, too. The sun would begin to set any moment now, if I had to guess.

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