Page 90 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

“That was—” He trails off.

“I meant what I said,” I tell him. “The next time we do this, I’m going to be the one holding you down and making you come. You’d better be ready for that.”

“Oh, I’m ready for it.” He grins. “You and I are going to have fun with this.”

I can’t help but agree. If this is what the future has in store for me and Wilder, I can’t wait to get started.

54

NATE

“Youknowwhattheonly thing bothering me is?” I say.

“Hmm?” Milo is kneeling beside a box of tin cans, pulling them out and arranging them on a shelf. It’s kind of funny to me to see him making this place up like a proper home, but also, I’m really happy for him that he gets to do it. Of all of us, Milo is the only one who’s really never had any kind of normalcy in his life. He’s been on his own since he was a little kid. So I get it. Having a place he can call home is important to him.

I sit down beside him, open another box, and start adding cans to his shelf. “Wilder didn’t want to attack,” I say. “Not at first. He didn’t want to attack the wolf pack.”

“Because of the moon,” Milo says. “He was right, by the way. I was completely powerless during the new moon too.”

“And you’re at your most powerful when the moon is full,” I say. “Isn’t that right?”

Milo nods. “That’s why Wilder wanted to wait as long as we possibly could before going in,” he says. “The longer we waited, the more moon there would be to help us.”

“Okay,” I say. “So why was Emlyn able to use ridiculously powerful magic, given that there was hardly any moon at all?”

“Yeah,” Milo says. “I’ve been thinking about it too.” He glances at me. “Are you uncomfortable with it?”

“Not as much as I would have expected to be,” I admit. “When I first found out I was running around with Moon Casters—well, you know how it struck me back then.”

“You wanted to turn us in for a reward.”

“Right. Obviously, I’d never do that now. But not just because you guys are my family. I actually kind of like magic. It’s been useful.”

“It’s definitely gotten us out of some tight spots,” Milo says. “And I can’t be sorry that Victor is dead, whatever it might have cost. When I saw what it did to her to be around him, I think I went a little nuts.”

I nod. “I would have skinned him alive. Slowly.”

“You would have done that anyway, just for kicks,” Milo says with a grin.

I grin back. “I might’ve,” I admit. “He was an asshole, wasn’t he? Even if he hadn’t been threatening Em, he would have been a complete asshole.”

“The worst.”

“But here’s what I want to know,” I say. “If Em can create little lightning storms like that when the moon is barely there, what’s she going to be capable of when it’s full?”

Milo weighs a can of wax beans in one hand carefully as if the answer is to be found there.

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I have no idea.”

“Do you think it’s going to be good or bad? Having her capable of unknown things like that?”

“I think we’re going to have to get the measure of what she can do in a hurry,” Milo says.

“In case we need to use her in a fight?”

“I was thinking more of helping her control it,” Milo says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad she was able to do what she did, and I’m definitely glad Victor’s dead. But we probably don’t want any more chaotic power explosions in the future, right?”

“Right,” I say. “As much as I like magic now, I definitely don’t want it getting out of control.”

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