Chapter 41

Yuna showed the message to Noah at seven in the morning and watched his expression go through several things in quick succession."Caine," he said."Has to be. He wanted me to know before the review that he thinks it's already decided." She put the phone down. "It's psychological.""Is it working?""A little," she admitted. "Which means it's very good psychological."Noah looked at the message for another moment, then handed the phone back. "Don't reply. Don't acknowledge it. That's what he wants, he wants you reactive.""I know.""I'm going to find out what was submitted to the council today. My father's contact said end of morning." He looked at her across the small table in the campus coffee shop where they'd met early, both slightly underslept, both operating on the particular alertness of people who have learned that threats don't observe reasonable hours. "How are you?""Ask me after Camille's meeting with Megan."He reached across the table and tipped her chin up briefly, just

Chapter 42

Margaret arrived at eight the next morning in a car that looked like it had been borrowed from someone practical, wearing a grey coat and carrying a single bag. She looked at the campus with the expression of someone who had agreed to something and was committed to it regardless of their feelings about the environment."Take me somewhere without students," she said when Yuna met her at the gate.They used Andrew Phillips's estate, which was an hour's drive but had the advantage of a proper meeting room, secure perimeter, and the kind of privacy that a university common room couldn't offer. Andrew met them there with Noah, Sandra Morrison who had driven from San Diego, and Diane who had flown from Colorado overnight.The fact that Diane had gotten on a plane without being asked was, Yuna thought, its own testimony.Margaret and Andrew Phillips regarded each other when they entered the room, two people with decades of history on opposite sides of the same events. It was a moment that de

Chapter 43

At nine that evening, Yuna sat on the floor of her room with the Binding open and reached through it carefully. She found each of the survivors in turn, touched the connection briefly. Owen. Diane, warmer now. Sophie, back with Patrick. The others, scattered and alive.She did not reach toward the gaps where Tyler was.She told herself she'd given him time and she meant it.She went to bed at ten and lay in the dark thinking about her mother's letter, about the phrase love that did not waver, and at some point she actually slept.Morning arrived with the particular clarity of days that will matter.She dressed and looked at herself in the mirror. Noah had said wear something that looks like yourself. She wore jeans and a clean white shirt and the royal bracelet and the small modified silver charm Noah had made her, now worn openly because the official distribution was no longer mandatory since the Victor threat had been neutralized.She looked like herself. Exactly herself.Camille ap

Chapter 44

They were back at Andrew's estate by midnight.Andrew, to his credit, did not say anything about the hour. He opened the door, looked at their faces, and made coffee.Rebecca was already there, having driven from her apartment in West Hollywood. She sat at the kitchen table with her hands around a mug, her expression doing the careful thing it did when she was managing more information than she was comfortable with."Tell me everything Tyler said," Yuna said, sitting down."He called from a gas station somewhere in the valley. He'd taken a bus from Malibu." Rebecca's voice was steady. "He said the atmosphere in the property changed around noon. Caine received a message, Tyler didn't know how, and then Caine assembled everyone and told them the council had voted to maintain Yuna's status.""How did the others react?" Noah asked."Mostly neutral. Some relieved, some disappointed. But then Caine said something else." Rebecca looked at Yuna. "He said the vote didn't matter because the rea

Chapter 45

"An artificial Binding," Margaret said, and the way she said it, flat and precise as a line drawn in stone, told Yuna exactly how serious this was.It was seven in the morning and Margaret was on speaker on Yuna's phone, Noah sitting on the edge of Yuna's desk, Camille cross legged on her bed, all of them still in the slightly unfinished state of people who hadn't had enough sleep. Rebecca had joined by phone from her apartment."Is it possible?" Noah asked."It's theoretically possible the way many dangerous things are theoretically possible," Margaret said. "The Binding is a neurological and supernatural mechanism. It runs through royal bloodline DNA, but the mechanism itself, the way it creates and maintains connection, is not unique to genetics. It could, in principle, be replicated if you understood it precisely enough.""And if Caine has someone who understands it precisely enough," Rebecca said."Then he doesn't need to control Yuna. He doesn't need to appear to align her with

All Chapters of All wolves university: The Last Kitsune: Chapter 41 - Chapter 45

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45