Page 33 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

Emlyn draws herself upright and sits with her arms wrapped loosely around her knees.

“We’re going to have to go back,” she tells me.

“It could be you next time,” I say. “Do you think I’m going to take that chance?”

She reaches out and traces her fingers over the barely healed scars on my arms. It’s thanks to Milo, probably, that I healed as well as I did. I was pretty out of it for the first few days.

“We’re going to have to go back for supplies if nothing else,” she says. “We’re low on food.”

“We can hunt for food.”

“We’re low on clothes, too. You’ve only got what you’re wearing. I’m coming up pretty short too.”

I sigh. I know she’s right. But the truth is, it just feelsbetterto be out in the woods. The wolf in me likes it better out here. And maybe that’s making me feel more powerful.

I’ve never lost a fight before.

Emlyn seems to know what I’m thinking. “We beat those Ravagers,” she reminds me. “We drove them off.”

“No,” I correct her. “Youbeat them. You and Wilder. I ran from them.”

“You did all you could,” she says. “You were on your own facing the whole swarm of them. I don’t know what else you could have done.”

“I didn’t do anything either,” Milo reminds me.

“You got that girl and her family out,” I say. “The little kid. That’s a big deal.” A lot of the Moon Casters were killed in the fight. Wilder nearly lost his mind with relief when Milo told him that the one and only young kid in the coven had been saved.

“Okay,” Milo said. “I did that. But I ran away from the Ravagers too. I didn’t fight any of them. I just found Maddie and her family and helped them get out.”

“You tried to fight them,” Emlyn tells me. “There were too many. Nobody could have fought them off hand to hand like that.”

“What we need,” Wilder says, “is a place we can stay long term. Some kind of shelter."

“You’re only saying that because it’s something you’ve always had,” I tell him. “Most people don’t go through life with a shelter like your coven had. Most of us move from place to place.”

Emlyn shakes her head. “That isn’t right,” she says. “My pack had our own place that we could come back to. Didn’t yours?”

“No,” I say. “We went wherever we wanted to go. It doesn’t make sense to stay in one place, with the world as full of danger as it is. You have to be ready for anything.”

“You also have to find peace and happiness where you can,” Milo chimes in. “I like the idea of a permanent home.”

“Do you really think we’re going to be able to find a place?” I ask them.

“We found one,” Wilder says. “The coven, I mean.”

“And look how that turned out,” I say.

Immediately, I regret it. Wilder’s expression freezes, and he turns away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That was a dick thing to say.”

He nods, but he doesn’t look back yet. I don’t blame him. Too many members of the coven died in that fight. We cleared the Ravagers out of the building we were in, the public building, but almost everyone who was in their private residence was lost.

“We’ll have to be careful,” I say. “We’ll have to take turns standing guard. We can’t ever afford to assume we’re safe just because we have four walls around us.”

“That’s right,” Milo agrees. “There are too many dangers out there. Ravagers, and these Moon Drinker people—”

“And my pack,” Emlyn says. “We can’t forget about them.”

---