บททั้งหมดของ The Boy Who Would Be Luna: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

SLATE'S POVThursday nights were always the slowest in the business.I wiped my rag down an already-clean bartop; my reflection glinted back at me from the black lacquer. In the bar’s stillness, our only customer’s dress rasped as she sat down, somewhat tacky copper-colored sequins catching on the barstool’s cracked leather padding. Low golden lamps reflected off the rows of bottles behind me, casting dreamlike liquid highlights over her stylist-orange hair.“Hi there, sugar,” the she-wolf purred, and dimpled at me with a smile meant for a much younger girl without eyes framed by slightly cracking pancakes of foundation that did nothing to hide the crow’s feet fanning out from her lashes.If I had to lay a guess I’d put her at a hard-ridden three hundred, three-fifty. Young enough to barely look like a mortal woman entering late middle age; old enough to know what she wanted.I threw on my practiced bartender’s smile–my shield, smooth and impenetrable–and tucked the rag away. “Hey to

SLATE'S POVI dropped the glass in the sink and flowed around the bar and to his side in less than a second, abandoning the pretense of moving at human speeds to reach him just in time. His body reeled against mine, his angular warmth pressing to my chest. His head lolled to my shoulder, the faintest hint of stubble rasping against my shirt. Once again, I caught that scent of wolf laced with raw grain alcohol and the smoother aroma of malt liquor.And the prickle of pheromones.Interest.Hot, tugging, needy, grasping with invisible claws and digging into my skin.“You,” he mumbled hazily. “You…you…”Absolutely not. Whatever I was smelling, it was likely a mixture of the alcohol and his drunken senses just reacting to contact with a warm body. Like hell I’d let myself be drawn in by a customer’s pheromones. I couldn’t afford to get that close to anyone.No matter how Xin stirred and paced restlessly in the back of my mind, his low growl of wanting teasing at the edges of my brain.“Sla

TRISTAN'S POVHe’s old, Severin observed softly, unusually subdued. Possibly as old as your father, or older. His wolf is completely walled off from me. Impenetrable.Which meant he was strong. Wolves grew into our power with age, but I didn’t know of anyone in Clearstone older or more powerful than my father.All I knew was that he carried a quiet stillness with him like a second presence. Something that lived under his skin and spoke of another self, a shadow self, dangerous and disguised under the surface of this mild-mannered wolf.Like sleeping menace–motionless for now, but could be awakened by a whisper. The kind of thing one tiptoed past with silent feet and held breaths; a secret that didn’t want to be known.He cleared his throat softly and I realized I was staring, drinking in with my eyes what I couldn’t tell with my hungover nose. Heat flushed my neck and crept up my jaw, and I looked away as I sat up slowly with a groaning creak of tired bones. I probably looked like hel

TRISTAN'S POV“Slate,” he said without looking up at me, or stopping his lazy circular swipes. “Because you won’t unbend your pride enough to ask, and you were too drunk to remember last night.”I bristled. My fingers clenched on the doorknob, and I found my tongue. “What makes you think I wanted to know?”He stopped. His gaze flicked up to me, that wintry blue knowing and cynical.“You are young,” he said “You don’t know just what your scent betrays.”I scowled mutely. The man–Slate–folded his arms over his broad chest and leaned his hip against the counter.“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “Everyone needs a good bender now and then. You could have woken up in some strange woman’s bed with no memory of the night before, instead of safely in the bartender’s home.”That only made me scowl deeper, glowering at him. I didn’t need–this wasn’t some kind of–His lips twitched. “There’s that pride again.”“What do you want from me?” I demanded. “My dad will pay you for putting me up for the

SLATE'S POV“No,” I replied calmly, “I’m not.”She pouted. “Uncle Slate, come on. I need protection.”“From what?”“Um…hello, boys?” She spread both hands like this should be self-explanatory, and leaned toward me. “Look. I don’t want a mate. Not yet. I have too many things I want to do before I’m tied down with pups and responsibility. So. I go to this stupid ball, you pretend to be my date, everyone’s too intimidated to come near me. Dad’s happy that I tried, and then I can go on about my life.”I eyed her sourly.The worst part was that I completely understood how she felt. Some wolves were ecstatic to find their mate; to be moon-fated to love and be loved without doubt or uncertainty, the plan for their lives laid out before them. Married, destined to spend moonlit nights running together on four legs, having and raising pups, growing old together over centuries and always having each other’s backs no matter how careers and lifestyles evolved over the decades. For many, that kind