Page 14 of Rejected Moons (Rejected Moons 3)

“I might,” I tell her. “This is my city. I know it pretty well. Try me.”

“I know the city too,” she said. “But the Moon Casters make themselves hard to track down.”

“You’re looking for Moon Casters?”

“I’m hunting them,” she says.

“By yourself? You’ll be killed.”

“I’m pretty good.”

“You’re not good enough to take on a whole coven,” I tell her. “Nobody’s that good.”

“That’s my problem,” she says, her voice harsh. “I’m not asking you to help me fight them. I’m just asking you to help me find them. Can you do it or not?”

The answer to that question is no. I have no idea where any Moon Caster covens are. I’ve hunted them in my day, of course, but they stay on the move, and the only ones I’ve ever successfully killed have been away from the larger group.

I’m a good Moon Caster hunter. I’m probably the best there is. But you don’t go looking for the coven. That’s crazy.

But Emlyn is watching me, waiting for an answer, and I know that if she starts up the stairs for a third time, there won’t be anything I can do to bring her back.

“Sure,” I tell her. “I know where there’s a coven.”

A blatant lie.

But she believes me. I can see it in the way her face relaxes. “You’ll take me to them?”

“You aren’t going to ask me to fight them?” I have to make this believable. If I over promise here, she’s going to get suspicious.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I definitely see what you mean about needing you for protection,” she says. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to fight the big bad Moon Casters.”

“I’m notafraidof Moon Casters,” I tell her. “I’ve killed nine of them in my time. How many have you killed?”

She doesn’t answer, which confirms my suspicions—she hasn’t killed any.

“It’s just a bad plan,” I tell her. “This is what my alpha’s problem was. He’d come up with all kinds of crazy bullshit and expect people to follow it blindly, even when his ideas were objectively stupid.”

“You’re saying I’m stupid.”

“I’m saying your idea to attack a full coven of Moon Casters is stupid,” I say. “But it’s like you said, isn’t it? That’s not my problem. You just want me to help you find them. Right?”

“Right,” she says.

“Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll take you to them, then. After that, you can do whatever you want.”

“How do I get you out?” she asks.

“Can you pick locks?”

“Never have before.”

“Grab that nail on the floor over there.” I point it out. “That ought to work.”

She fetches the nail and I talk her through the process of opening the padlock on my cage. Finally, the door swings wide, letting me out. I scramble for freedom and rise to my feet, stretching my body out fully for the first time in four days.

She averts her eyes, and I remember that I’m naked. My clothes are in a heap in the corner. I grab them and pull them on.

“When will your pack be back?” she asks. “Or are they coming back at all?”

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