Page 34 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

“Do you think they’re still after us?” I ask. “Even though your alpha mate was killed?”

Emlyn nods. “Victor might be dead,” she says. “But he had friends. And they won’t be quick to forgive. I don’t think they’re hunting me as actively as they were. I don’t think they’re offering a bounty for me. But if they found me, they would definitely kill me, and kill anyone who tried to defend me.”

“We’ll be safer from all these things if we have a place that’s ours,” Wilder says. “Somewhere we can fortify. Somewhere we can defend.”

I’m not sure he’s right. But it’s obviously important to him. And he’s saved my life three times now, not to mention leaving his coven behind to join my little family.

Is he part of the harem? I don’t know yet. I don’t know what the dynamic is between him and Emlyn. They don’t seem to know either.

But I do know that Wilder is part ofusnow.

“All right,” I say. “First thing in the morning, we head back to the city.”

19

EMLYN

“Thisplacelookslikea ghost town,” Wilder murmurs as we make our way through the streets on the edge of the city.

“It looks like it always looks,” Nate says.

Nate’s right. Buildings with busted-out windows, weeds forcing their way up through cracks in the pavement, and not a sign of anyone anywhere—that’s what I’ve come to expect when I’m in the city. All the shifters and Moon Casters who live here keep their homes secret, and there aren’t that many of us anyway. Most of the human population of this city died in the violent earthquakes and windstorms that followed the Lunar Reversal.

Wilder looks uncomfortable. He strides ahead a bit. I exchange glances with Milo and Nate and then hurry after him.

“What’s up?” I ask, pulling even.

“Has the city really always been like this?” he asks.

“You’ve lived in the city for years.”

“But I always lived in the protection of my coven,” he says. “Even when I left our little complex, I never really looked at it. Not like this. I was always too focused on whatever job I had been sent to do.”

“Looking for Moon Drinkers?”

“Yes. Usually.” He looks around. “This place is really trashed. It’s hard to believe there was a home as nice as my coven had right here in the middle of it.”

I nod. “This is why Nate didn’t want to come back, I think,” I say. “He was picturing us making a life for ourselves in the woods.”

“I can’t do that,” Wilder says. “I can’t live wild like that.”

“You probably could,” I say. “I didn’t think I could do it either when I first left my pack, but now I know I could handle it.”

“But that’s different,” he says. “You’re a shifter. You’ve got that wolf energy in you.” He pauses. “I felt it, you know. During the Ravager attack, when you and I fended them off together.”

“Is it always like that?” I ask. I’ve been meaning to talk to him about this, but I haven’t known how to bring it up. “When you combine your magic with someone else like that? Milo and I have tried it, but neither of us is trained.”

He nods. “There’s alwayssomedegree of interpersonal connection,” he says. “I’ve never felt it so strongly before, though.” He’s quiet for a moment. “What’s it like for you and Milo?”

“Not as powerful as that.” It feels shameful to admit it.

He glances at me. “You were right to think it’s because neither of you have been trained,” he says. “I know how to forge that connection. That’s why you felt it more strongly with me. It doesn’t mean…anything. I can help you and Milo learn how to do it.”

“But why did you feel it so strongly?” I ask him. “Shouldn’t it have been much stronger for you with Regine?”

He shrugs expansively. “I don’t know why,” he says. “I only know what I felt.”

“Hey!” Nate calls. “Come and look at this.”

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