Exiled Wolf, Fated Luna

Chapter 22 – At the Long Table, Again

The long table has never felt longer.

Every bench is packed. Wolves press shoulder to shoulder, Hollowpeak and Grimvale scents tangled together in a confusing knot—stone and pine and fear, overlaid by stew and bread and the sharp bite of Vael’s curses as she smacks someone’s hand away from the pot.

“Sit,” she barks. “There’s enough for everyone if you lot remember how to share. Milo, plate. Neri, stop trying to steal the ladle. You’re not tall enough to wield that much power.”

Laughter ripples, thin but real.

I hover at the edge of it, tray in hand, feeling like a piece of mismatched cutlery someone stuck in the wrong drawer.

“Here,” Neri calls, somehow managing to wave and balance a roll at the same time. “Vexa, here!”

She’s squeezed herself into a gap halfway down the table, Milo on one side, Orrik on the other. Across from them, there’s a space that looks suspiciously like it was saved.

For me.

I make myself move.

As I weave between benches, I feel Hollowpeak eyes on me—kids peeking over their bowls, adults trying not to stare and failing. One boy of about twelve mutters something that makes his friend snicker. I catch the word “defective” and my spine goes stiff on instinct.

Before I can decide whether to pretend I didn’t hear, Darian’s voice drifts from the far end.

“Conversation we can live with,” he says mildly, not even looking up from his plate. “Recycling old insults we buried for a reason? Not at my table.”

The boy startles, flushing, and stares down at his food. His friend suddenly finds the salt shaker fascinating.

I slide onto the bench opposite Neri. Milo shifts his bowl to make more room without me asking.

“Hi,” I say, because it’s all I’ve got.

“Hi,” Milo echoes. His gaze flicks to the Hollowpeak kids, then back to me. There’s quiet defiance in it that makes my chest ache.

Orrik leans past Neri, eyeing the newcomers with exaggerated suspicion. “They look like they came off the same mountain you did,” he stage‑whispers. “Do they bite?”

“Only when cornered,” I say. “Or when someone steals their blankets.”

He smirks. “So like Vael.”

“Exactly like Vael,” Neri agrees, reaching for the bread basket. “Pass.”

As I tear a piece of bread, a girl across from us—maybe fourteen, Hollowpeak sharpness softened by weeks on the road—keeps glancing my way and then away. Finally, she blurts, “Is it true?”

I raise a brow. “Going to need more than that.”

“That you’re…” She falters under four sets of Grimvale stares, then rushes out, “That you were the one they sent away. From us. That you don’t—” she stops short of the word shift like it’s a curse “—and they still made you stand up there.”

For a heartbeat, the room sounds like it did the first night I arrived—too loud and distant. My pulse thuds in my ears.

“Yes,” I say. My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “Hollowpeak sent me here because they didn’t know what to do with me. And because it was easier than changing their own rules.”

Her throat works. She looks down at her hands. “They… they said you were dangerous,” she whispers. “That… letting you stay would make the Goddess angry.”

Anger spikes so fast my fingertips tingle.

Beside me, Milo stiffens. Across from us, Orrik’s expression darkens.

Neri makes a disgusted noise. “The Goddess doesn’t need grumpy old men to speak for her,” she says. “If she wanted lightning to smite someone, she’d just do it.”

A few Hollowpeak kids blink like they’ve never heard anyone talk about the divine that casually.

I swallow back my first ten responses and go with the eleventh.

“I was dangerous to them,” I say slowly. “Because I didn’t fit. Because my wolf didn’t act the way they wanted. Because I kept… feeling things they didn’t want to look at.” I meet the girl’s eyes. “But I haven’t made Grimvale fall into the sea yet. So maybe their fear wasn’t about the Goddess.”

“Maybe it was about losing control,” Orrik mutters.

“Smart puppy,” Vael calls from down the table. “Eat your vegetables.”

The girl chews her lip. “What if…” She glances at her friends, then back at me. “What if we don’t shift right? Or at all. Are we going to be… sent away again?”

My chest hurts.

Milo’s hand finds my sleeve under the table, small fingers curling there like an anchor.

“No,” I say, and pour everything I have into the word. “Not like that. Not here.”

“But—”

“If someone can’t stay,” I cut in gently, “it’s because they choose to leave or because this isn’t the right place for them. Not because they didn’t fit into one narrow idea of ‘enough.’” I gesture around. “Look at this table. Do we look like we all fit one mold?”

She actually looks.

At Vael shoving stew at a warrior twice her size. At Bran laughing quietly with a cluster of elders. At Teren arguing about patrol routes with a human from town who smells like coffee and engine grease. At Darian, head tipped back, listening to Tharos with intense focus despite the bandage on his arm.

At me. At Milo. At the kids from Hollowpeak sitting with Grimvale pups like the seating chart got up and walked away.

“No,” she admits softly.

“Then we’re going to build something where you don’t have to pretend you do,” I say. “It’ll be messy. People will screw up. But we’re not sending anyone to a different mountain so we don’t have to think about them.”

Silence falls over our stretch of table.

Then the boy who muttered “defective” earlier clears his throat.

“My brother…” he says, voice cracking. “He never shifted. Back home. They said he was cursed. He ran. No one… went after him. I haven’t seen him since.”

Grief and guilt roll off him like a tide.

My heart twists.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s inadequate. “If he’s out there, we’ll… we’ll keep an eye out. Grimvale has long patrols, and we talk to more than just Council packs.”

“That’s not—” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I mean. Thank you. But I just… I thought I was the only one who… thought it was wrong. To let him go like that.”

“You weren’t,” I say quietly. “But it’s hard to say that when everyone around you is calling it Goddess’ will.”

He flinches at the phrase.

Across the room, Rhoen catches my eye. There’s pain in his gaze, and something like gratitude. He doesn’t step in. He lets me speak for myself this time.

Darian doesn’t interrupt either.

He just listens, bond threaded through with pride and a wary, bruised hope.

“Here,” Neri says suddenly, shoving the breadbasket toward the Hollowpeak kids with more force than necessary. “Eat. You can’t talk about feelings on an empty stomach. It’s illegal.”

Laughter bubbles up around us, fragile but real.

The spell breaks. Conversation starts again in fits and starts. Questions. Jokes. Stories. The usual chaos of a pack trying to decide how much history to share over stew.

I eat, and talk, and listen, and let them look at me until my skin stops crawling.

At some point, Milo leans against my shoulder without quite meaning to. Orrik starts complaining about training schedules like nothing in the world matters more than who gets the good practice slots. The Hollowpeak girl asks Neri what school is like in town. The boy with the missing brother stares at his hands a long time, then looks up and jumps into a conversation about patrol routes like he’s afraid of being left out of that, too.

Across the room, Darian catches my eye.

He tips his chin—barely a nod, more a question.

You still okay?

I’m exhausted. Overstimulated. Raw.

And I’m here. At this table. With my ghosts and my future and my pack.

I let the bond stretch just enough to send back one clear answer.

Still not running.

His mouth curves the smallest amount.

Then Vael whacks him with a dishtowel for stealing her bread, and the room erupts into another argument about fair portions, and the long table holds.

So do I.