# Chapter 13: The Punch

"My father?"

My voice came out as a whisper. Behind me, Owen had gone completely still.

Hollis took his hand away from my face. He stepped back slowly, and his white eyes looked at something far away, something I couldn't see.

"You knew him?" I said. "You knew my father? What was his name? What did he look like? Mom never tells me anything. She just says he's dead, and…"

"Stop."

The old man held up one thin hand.

"Not here," he said. "Not now."

"Please. I've waited my whole life."

"Then you can wait a few more days." He turned his head a little to the side, like he was listening to something far away in the trees. "The woods have ears, girl. Some of them are crows, and some of them are not."

I looked around. The crows were still sitting in every tree, silent, watching.

And for one strange second, I felt something else too. Someone else, out there in the dark between the trunks. Watching.

"When?" I whispered.

"The full moon. Five nights from now." Hollis turned and walked back up his porch steps, and sat down in his rocking chair. He picked up his gray blanket and put it back over his shoulders. "Come alone. Tell no one. Not the boy. Not your friend. Not the Alpha."

"What about my mother?"

He was quiet for a long moment.

"*Especially* not your mother."

That hit me like a slap.

"Why?"

"Because she has been carrying this for twenty-one years," he said softly. "And she is tired, child. So very tired. Let her rest a little longer."

He started to rock slowly in his chair. Back and forth. The old wood creaked.

I thought he was done. I picked up the empty laundry basket from last week and turned to leave.

"Sienna Vale."

I turned back.

Hollis wasn't smiling now. His face was hard and serious.

"Don't bleed in that house," he said.

---

I didn't say a word the whole walk home.

Owen talked enough for both of us. "Did you hear that? He knew your *dad*! How did he know? He's blind! And what's a Moonborn? Is it a kind of wolf? Is it a kind of cookie? Sienna, are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

"Owen," I said. "Can you do something for me?"

"Anything."

"Don't tell anyone what he said. Not your mom, not the other guards, not Kael. Nobody."

He stopped walking. He looked at me with his big freckled face, and for once he was serious.

"Okay," he said. "I promise. On my life."

"Thank you."

"But you have to tell me what a Moonborn is one day."

"When I find out," I said, "you'll be the first to know."

---

Kael came home from the elders' meeting at seven o'clock. He looked tired. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his lip was tight.

He found me in the library on the first floor, sitting in a big leather chair with the border book open on my knees.

"Chapter six," he said, standing in the doorway. "Name the three creeks on the west border."

"Pine Creek, Black Water, and Little Fox."

"Which one floods in the spring?"

"Black Water. It comes up three feet, and you can't cross it for two weeks."

"Where is the old hunting tower?"

"North side of Ridge Hill, behind the split rock."

He looked at me. I looked back at him.

"You read it," he said.

"Every word. Twice."

He nodded slowly. Then he did something that surprised me.

"Come with me," he said. "Day five isn't finished yet."

---

The training barn was a long wooden building behind the guards' house. Inside, it smelled like sweat and old hay. There were thick mats on the floor and punching bags hanging from the ceiling.

It was full of people.

Evening training. Twenty guards, maybe more, were practicing in pairs on the mats. They were punching and kicking and throwing each other to the ground. The sound of grunting and slapping filled the barn.

When Kael walked in, every single one of them stopped.

"Alpha," they said, all together.

Then their eyes moved to me. Some of them looked surprised. Some looked annoyed. A few of the boys from my first day, the ones who made bets about me crying, smirked at each other.

But a few of them looked different now. They'd heard about the lake. About Owen. About the Hollow girl with the tire iron.

"Clear the center mat," Kael said.

They moved fast. They stepped back to the walls and made a big circle.

Kael walked into the middle of the mat. He pulled off his jacket and threw it on the floor. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, and I could see the white bandage on his shoulder under the thin cotton.

He turned to face me.

"Show me," he said.

"Show you what?"

"What you learned."

"You want me to fight *you*?"

"Yes."

"In front of everyone?"

"Yes."

"My ankle is still bad."

"Then don't use your ankle."

I stared at him. The whole barn was silent. Every eye was on me.

*He's testing me,* I thought. *He wants to see if I'll run.*

Fine.

I took off my green jacket. I walked onto the mat. I put my feet apart, knees soft, weight low, just like he taught me. I made my fists, with my thumbs outside and not tucked in.

Someone near the wall laughed. I didn't look at them.

Kael came at me.

He was slow at first, just like on the field. Easy punches. Testing. I blocked them all with my forearms. Left, right, left. It still hurt my bruises, but I blocked them.

Then he got faster.

I blocked some. I missed others. His fist stopped an inch from my nose, then from my stomach, then from my cheek. Each time, he could have hit me. Each time, he didn't.

"Too slow," he said. "Again."

He came again. Faster. I stepped back. My bad ankle wobbled, and I almost fell.

Somebody in the crowd whistled. "Go down, Hollow!"

Kael didn't even look. "Silence," he said, and the barn went quiet again.

But the voice made me angry. Hot and angry, the same anger from the hill when Margot lifted her coffee cup at me. It rose up inside my chest. It made my fists tight and my eyes sharp.

*He's holding back,* I thought. *He's always holding back. Because he thinks I'm glass.*

Kael came at me again with a slow punch, an easy one.

This time, I didn't block it.

I remembered what Rhys showed me. *Don't push back. You'll lose. Use his own weight.*

I grabbed Kael's wrist with both hands. I turned my body, fast, so my back was to his chest. I dropped low. I threw my hip back, hard, right into him.

He was so surprised that he actually stumbled forward.

Just one step. Just for one second, the great Alpha Kael Thorne lost his balance.

And in that one second, I turned around and punched him right in the face.

*SMACK.*

The whole barn gasped.

Kael's head turned to the side. He stood very still.

Slowly, he lifted his hand and touched his mouth. When he took his fingers away, there was blood on them. His bottom lip was split, just a little. A small red line.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

I stood there with my fist still up and my heart pounding like crazy.

*Oh my God. I just punched the Alpha. In front of twenty guards. I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die.*

Kael looked at the blood on his fingers. Then he looked at me.

And he smiled. It was a big, slow smile, with blood on his lip.

"Good," he said softly. "Very good."

Then, from the doorway, someone started clapping. Loudly. Very loudly.

Rhys was leaning against the door frame, grinning like a crazy person.

"*THE HIP TRICK!*" he shouted. "I *told* you it works on Alphas!"

And the barn broke open. Some guards laughed. A few clapped. Mara, the gray-haired guard from the lake, nodded at me slowly with something that looked like respect. Owen, who had sneaked in somehow, was jumping up and down by the wall, punching the air.

The boys who made the bets on my first day weren't smirking anymore.

They were staring at me with their mouths open.

---

At dinner, Kael sat at the end of the table with a little cut on his lip. Every time I looked at it, I felt proud and guilty at the same time.

Garrett noticed it right away.

"Kael," he said, raising his eyebrows. "What happened to your face?"

"Training," Kael said.

"Who hit you?"

Kael picked up his glass of water. He looked at me over the top of it.

"Someone very fast," he said.

Rhys choked on his wine. My face went red. Mom looked between Kael and me with a strange, worried look in her eyes.

Margot looked too. And her green eyes went cold as ice.

She put down her fork. She dabbed her lips with her white napkin, very slowly. Then she smiled her big, sweet smile, and tapped her glass with her spoon.

*Ting, ting, ting.*

Everyone looked at her.

"I have an announcement," she said. "I spoke with my father today. And with Garrett." She smiled at Garrett. He smiled back at her. "We've all agreed. Why wait until spring? Kael and I are in love. Everyone can see it."

She reached over and took Kael's hand on the table. He didn't take it back. But his whole body went stiff.

"So we've moved the wedding," Margot said, and she looked straight at me. "Kael and I will be married at the Blood Moon Festival."

My heart stopped.

"That's in three weeks," she said sweetly.