“No.”
“I can’t let your family do this for me. What if one of your brothers gets killed? What if they kill you? I can’t. I have to go with them. But...listen… I could escape someday,” she’s saying. She’s been speaking softly but now she looks at me hard and her tone is firm. “I could escape, Micah. I’ll try to if I can. Okay? Someday, maybe. In a year or two-”
“No, no, no…” It’s too awful to contemplate. The things he said he would do... The kind of man Dax is, making her his slave like that… My face twists up and for a crazy moment I hate her for even contemplating that this is the best option. “Fuck you,” I hiss. “Fuck you.”
She looks taken aback by that, but she sees what I mean by it and cups my cheeks in her hands. “That’s good,” she whispers, kissing my lips so tenderly. “That’s good. Be angry at me. It will make everything so much easier.”
Of course, that doesn’t make me want to be angry at her.
“My love,” I whisper, kissing her softly again. “Jesus, Luna…”
I have to find a way out of this. There is the hope that Alice will call Xander. But I can’t rely on it. I have to figure out a way to at least get Luna out, but it really must be the both of us, because she’ll just try to sacrifice herself again.
My mate is a brave and selfless dope.
“Why didn’t you let them help you?” I ask her. My brothers, I know too well, would have dropped everything if they’d known. Even if Xander was ever likely to make some noise about my mate being from some troublesome pack, he would have helped her and gotten over it. That’s how Xander goes. I know why though. She didn’t want them to get hurt on her account. “I wish you could have… I wish…” She wraps her arms around me, careful of my wounds and leans her head on my chest and we stay like that for a while. I’m sure I smell gross and look worse, but she clings to me and it manages to ease my pain when she kisses my chest and keeps whispering that she loves me.
The connection between us is so strong, I feel like it’s nourishing me. Mates can help each other in all sorts of ways from what I’ve read. I suppose this is like that. I feel a little stronger as she remains there, holding me.
Maybe I’m finally losing my marbles in here, but it makes me wonder if I could pull something off to get us out of here. I wonder if I could throw off the dampener and shift if I tried hard enough. If both of us can shift, we might just be able to sneak out of here or fight our way out if we can manage to dodge the tranq guns.
“Did they give you anything?” I ask her.
“Give me anything?” Luna says. “What do you mean?”
“Did they inject you with anything?” I say. “They gave me a dampener so I can’t shift. Did they give you that?”
“No,” Luna says. “I can still shift.”
“Okay.” I nod. That makes me feel one degree better anyway. “That’s good.”
We've been left alone. That’s something. I use the quiet time to focus on the bit of strength I feel building up. I start trying to throw off the dampener and shift.
It’s sort of like trying to lift a building.
Every muscle tenses and I grimace as I focus on breaking through the impenetrable kind of wall that feels like it’s suffocating me every time I try to push my wolf out.
It’s exhausting. After only a few minutes, there’s sweat pouring off me and Luna is looking at me like I might be nuts.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to break through the dampener,” I say, panting. “I think...I could do it if I just… if I could…”
Luna’s eyes are shining and she rests her cheek against mine. “They’re going to let you go. And you’re going to go home. And someday I’ll try to come back to you.”
“That’s not happening,” I mumble. “Stop being so difficult.”
“I’m being difficult?” She leans back and looks at me in surprise, her eyebrows raised.
For a moment, we’re just flirting in the ice cream shop again. I have just enough freedom of movement in my shackles to stroke her cheek.
“Baby,” I say, “your name may be Luna, but I’m the one that’s going to give you that moon you want. Just let me try, okay?”
Chapter Seventeen: Luna
I’m in the woods.
Nothing hurts and I’m not scared. My wolf is running without fear and I’m feeling freer than I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t have to hide from anyone I care about and I know I’m loved. The cool, crisp air is refreshing as it blows through that honey brown fur that Micah loves so much and it’s thicker and more lustrous than it has ever been. I never realized how much my life of hiding myself even from other shifters and not running when I should was affecting me physically. I feel so strong and sure as my muscles stretch and I run, jumping logs and splashing through streams. I can smell everything and everyone and it’s like eating the best meal I’ve ever tasted.
I know these woods now. They’ve become familiar. They’re home to me.
My mate comes running up beside me. I feel him approach even before I catch his scent. My heart swells like it always does when Micah is anywhere near me. Tonight is the full moon. I don’t shift with the moon but Micah does. I joined him and his brothers tonight.
I’ll give you the moon, he told me.
Now he has.
Tonight, when we shift back, we’ll find Michelle and Trevor and Micah’s parents back at the estate. We’ll have dessert. I helped his mother bake lemon cake. We’ll sit around in the parlor and Micah will tell stupid jokes and we’ll laugh and I’ll squeeze the back of his neck and play with the curl of his hair that sits there at his nape, and he’ll smile at me like I’m the only woman in the world. I’ll feel safe and happy. And later, in bed, he’ll take me in his arms and make me his all over again.
But now, in the forest, we’re running. Micah nudges me and sprints off, outpacing me. I run after him, wagging my tongue, eager to catch up.
We don’t even notice the bolt of lightning. It tears through a tree branch that falls in our path blocking our way. We stop short, alarmed, our ears pricking up. I can smell the burning wood.
Soon the tree is on fire. The woods. The whole forest could burn!
It happens in seconds. The trees are catching fire, one by one. The flames are impossibly hot; red and orange licking at every beloved pine and fir. I can hear the animals screaming and running. We’re scrambling, looking for Micah’s brothers. I have to help him. I have to make sure our family is safe.
The forest is engulfed in flames and we’re forced to escape, fleeing the woods toward the estate.
But there, in the grass, as we come running out horror is waiting for us. There is Xander, his throat torn open, gurgling as he lies there on the ground, his last breath rushing out of him. There’s Mason with his head bashed in and his peaceful, contented face now twisted in pain. There are the older Tremblays with their necks broken. There is Aaron…
I shift into human form and fall to me knees in the cold, wet grass when I see Michelle with no life in her eyes and her belly slick with blood, a lifeless Trevor in her arms.
Dax stands at the gates of the rose garden. He’s laughing.
“Girls like you don’t get the moon,” he says, before slicing Micah’s throat.
“Luna…”
He’s taken everything from me. I have nothing left. Nothing..
“Luna!”
Micah…
“Luna!”
I wake with a jerk, still shouting, “Micah!” He’s shaking my shoulder.
There is no grass or rose garden. No dead Tremblays and no burning woods. I fell asleep, sitting on the floor and leaning up against the wall. I must have been screaming in my sleep. Micah is looking down at me, all worried, as if he isn’t the one who’d been getting continually tortured all day.
“I’m alright,” I mutter. But even as I say it, I have to hold back tears. I stand and clutch him to me again. I don’t want to let go. He’s murmuring sweet things
in my ear. I’m brave, according to him. Stupid, sometimes, but brave, and I’m strong and we’ll survive this… I want to believe him, but I can’t. It already hurts so much to see him like this.
“What would we be doing if we were home right now?” I say, leaning against his chest again. “If we were just a normal couple?”
“We’d be watching movies,” he whispers in my ear. “Over at my place. I would have cleaned up for you. I would have called Michelle and asked how to make my apartment nicer for my girlfriend.”
I chuckle at that, despite everything. “She’d tell you to buy a throw blanket and three pillows. I can even tell you which blanket she’d tell you to buy.”
“We could watch something classic,” Micah says.
“What, like The Wizard of Oz?”
“I was thinking more like Beverly Hills Cop,” Micah says, and it’s so Micah that I have to kiss him. “I guess that then,” he says, smiling just a little with his split lip.
“That’s sounds so nice,” I say. “We could snuggle under the blanket.”
“Mmm…”
“Popcorn.”
“Of course.”
“What candy do you like for movies?”
“Milk Duds.”
“They get stuck in your teeth,” I whisper, gazing up at him. He gives me that adoring gaze like he always does, and, for a second, nothing that’s happening even matters because he’s looking at me like that.
“I still like em’,” he whispers back. “Your nose scrunches up sometimes, you know? It’s so cute. It kills me every time.”
“Micah-”
“Love birds!” Dax’s voice thunders through the corridor. Suddenly, he’s stomping over to our cell. I pull away slightly from Micah, but only so I can turn and stand a little in front of him. It might be wishful thinking that I can protect him at all, but I’ll take what I can get.
“You said you’d let him go,” I say, biting down on my words. “Why haven’t you yet?”
“Jesus Christ, Luna,” Dax says, sadly shaking his head. “You are truly the dumbest bitch I have ever met and that is saying something.” He slaps my forehead and Micah growls, lashing out, before a guard shocks him. The sight of him convulsing in pain makes me cry out and I hug him to me, glaring at Dax.
“I will go with you,” I say firmly. “But let him go. You really want the Tremblays after you? They’re not going to just forget. Their entire clan will come after you!”
“And we’ll spill a whole lot of their blood before they spill ours,” Dax says. His eyes are wild. I’m starting to wonder if this is something other than just stupidity or his devotion to my father’s manifesto. Dax isn’t just evil, he’s totally delusional. Or he at least really doesn’t care if he gets all of his people killed as long as he can bring the kind of shifters he hates down with him.
“But first,” Dax stomps in and wraps an arm around Micah’s neck and smacks a kiss to his bloody temple. “Let’s put this shit wolf to bed, shall we? Time for little Tremblay to go night night-”
“NO!” It’s stupid. There’s no point at all but I’m willing to go down fighting. I start to shift but somebody backhands me and shoves me against the bars and it throws me off enough that I don’t. Micah’s shouting at me and Dax grips my throat with one hand. He squeezes tightly enough that I can’t breathe. He’s practically lifting me off the floor.
He presses up against me, and the smell of him and his cigarettes and sweat makes me want to retch, or it would if I could breathe. Micah is screaming at Dax but he’s being held back.
“I’ll play with you later,” he says, loud enough for Micah to hear. “He comes first.”
“Augh!” That’s one of the guards. I can’t breathe. Dax is still gripping my throat and the edges of my vision are starting to turn black. Dax whips his head around and his grip goes lax enough for me to choke down some air. Micah has bitten the guard’s hand and it’s gushing blood. The guard shrieks, jumping away and holding his own wrist.
Micah is breathless, his mouth and jaws dripping blood. He looks like a nightmare, all beaten up and bloodied with wild, feral eyes. “Get your hands off of her, you son of a bitch!”
I could shift and I want to. If I shifted, my paws would slip out of their shackles. I’d have just enough time to attack Dax for all I’m worth before they shot me with a tranq dart. If they kill him, it’ll certainly be worth it.
I think about all this in the space of a second during which I see Micah’s face, pale with rage. He starts to shake, the blood dripping down his throat to the open collar of his now bloodied and muddy, white shirt.
He’s trying to shift. My beautiful mate. Well, if he can’t, I will.
We make eye contact and in a fraction of a second I see him nod and I know he’s telling me to do it.
All of Dax’s threats are bullshit anyway. Because it doesn’t matter what I do or what Micah does. Dax will do whatever the hell he wants. So we might as well go down fighting.
I feel a thrill of love coursing through my veins when I shift. I send it all in my mate’s direction. It feels like a literal, physical thing that I’m doing. I feel as if some energy leaves my body, the power of my wolf filling me as a I shift. I howl for blood and bare my teeth, the shackles falling from my feet.
I pounce at Dax. It’s awkward in the small space of the cell and I don’t get as much power in it as I’d like, but then I feel flesh and muscle in my teeth when I latch onto his arm, the only piece of him I could get. Dax is screaming and the guards dash out of the cell. For a second, I think they’re running away, but then a corded loop is around my neck and one of the guards is yanking me off Dax, the loop choking me, and I gag, falling back on my haunches. A second loop is thrown, the two guards pushing and yanking with their restraining poles. The wolf in me panics and rages, darting and snapping, only to be choked again. I bare my teeth but I can hardly breathe. I’ll eat all of these assholes-
“What the hell-”
They’re all staring at Micah who’s shaking. His eyes are more blue now than gray, icy and bright. They’re practically glowing. He’s screaming my name and I think he’s dying or something. I howl for him. I howl like my heart is being ripped from my chest. I howl my love for my mate and now I see him shift. He’s screaming as he throws off the dampener and Dax’s eyes are wide. At least this was something he didn’t see coming. Everyone is staring at Micah as Dax’s arm gushes blood and I take advantage of their distraction to clamp Dax’s leg in my teeth. My jaws bite down so hard through the thick fabric of his jeans, and then through his skin and muscle, that I taste the gristle of his bone.
Dax’s screams echo through the corridor.
The sound of it is so satisfying, I could cry.
Micah is his wolf. He’s bigger than I’d imagine and in the small cell as the guards back away in terror, he seems like he’ll burst through the walls. His fur is a silvery gray and his paws and tail are white. He pounces for Dax, so I let go just as one of the guards grabs the pole still attached to a loop around my neck. I thrash and attack. They can’t hold me. They’re running scared and I shove past Micah and Dax, out to the corridor where the guards are trying to get away, one of them trying to ready his tranq gun. I go for him first, trying to shake off the restraining loop. The guards have let go of the poles and the loops loosen enough for me to get them off. The guy with the tranq gun is fumbling and drops his weapon. The two of them abruptly shift and then it’s a mad fight. I go hard, for all I’m worth. It’s two against one and they’re probably good fighters but I feel the strength of my mate with me. Micah threw off the dampener and now I feel like the two of us can do anything as long as we’re together. I taste blood, gristle, muscle, fur and the dirt caked into it.
The wolves cry and growl and scrap but then they’re running from me, having given up.
But others will be coming soon. We’ve just attacked their alpha.
I’ve lost track of Micah and Dax and when I turn around, I see two wolves in th
e cell. Micah is tearing through Dax’s throat.
My tormenter is dying, his eyes wide and losing light, blood gushing from his throat. He can no longer hurt me now. But I don’t need to see it. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters but the life that’s just been handed back to me, if I can just grab a hold of it now and never let it go.
I bark at Micah and he looks up at me. For the first time, I see the look of an animal in his eyes. He’s mad with bloodlust as he takes Dax’s life. But when he sees me, he knows. He lets Dax’s throat go. I can hear the gurgle of Dax’s death coming as he struggles. It’s the best music I’ve ever heard. I hope it takes a long time and I hope it hurts.
I give him one last look as Micah starts to trot down the corridor.
In theory, I would have liked to kill him myself. But I feel as close to Micah as if we were the same person. And I don’t need more of Dax in my mouth anyway.
When I glance back, I see the light finally leave his eyes for good as he goes limp. Micah and I dash down the corridor, keeping our eyes open for a way out of this nightmare.
Chapter Eighteen: Micah
Luna and I are on the run. Dax’s men are everywhere. We keep ducking around corners and into cages, scrambling over each other’s paws. I’m aching and hurting all over, yet I feel oddly strong now. I feel like I could take down Dax’s entire pack myself.
When I saw my mate, my beautiful honey brown Luna, thrashing and fighting as those bastards tried to choke her with the restraint poles, and after I saw Dax treat her like some meaningless object and nearly choke the life out of her, I felt a kind of strength I never knew I could possess. I felt our connection firm between us. I felt her heart touch mine, her strength my strength. All at once, I was able to throw off the dampener like it was nothing.
I’ve never killed anyone. My father has told me a hundred times that I’m lucky I’ve never been in a situation where I had to. I’ve hunted plenty, it’s the nature of the wolf within me. But I’ve never killed a person.
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