by Emilia Rose
He arched a brow at me. “You look like shit. No offense.”
“None taken.” I collapsed into my chair. I probably should’ve gone back to the pack house, so Roman knew I was okay, but I couldn’t get myself to see him this morning. “Roman and I had a fight over Kylo last night. He told me that Kylo has a flower called the Wolf’s Flower, which could kill a wolf born under the Wolf’s Moon. He thinks that Kylo will try to use it on me.”
Raj blew out a deep breath. “Why didn’t we know about this?”
“Ryker probably knew about it,” I said, shaking my head at the thought of him keeping so much from us. “Either way, we can’t let Roman get it or let Kylo keep it. It is safest with the Lycans.”
“You don’t trust Roman with it?”
No, he’ll kill our Kylo.
I tensed and swallowed hard, cheeks flushing. Our Kylo?
After pushing my wolf out of my mind, I sat up taller. “He can’t have it.”
Raj sat back and furrowed his brows, intertwining his brown fingers. “If he has that flower and it really does what Roman says it does, I don’t think you should attend the party. I know I said that you should go, but I don’t want you to be in danger. And I’m sure that Roman won’t let you go after finding that out.”
Yet something inside told me that Kylo wasn’t a threat to me.
“Kylo won’t hurt me.”
He hadn’t hurt me at the meeting. He hadn’t hurt me during the battle. He hadn’t killed me last night. Why would he wait until the party? Wouldn’t he want to kill me in front of Roman, where he could gloat in glory?
“I’m going,” I said, making up my mind. “I need to find out his true intentions.” And about why I was so attached to him. Maybe the Moon Goddess or one of the divine wolves would have some insight about us.
Chapter 12
Roman
Isabella hadn’t come home last night and hadn’t even come by this morning.
Find mate, my wolf demanded. Find our mate now.
I balled the stem of a moonflower in my hand and listened to it crack. When I had mentioned killing Kylo last night, she’d bared her canines and growled possessively at me, like the man meant something to her.
He couldn’t. He fucking couldn’t. She was mine.
A petal fell off the flower, drifted through the air, and landed on the oak desk, its light dimming by the moment until it went out completely.
I had run all around the pack last night, trying to find her and caught her conversation with Vanessa through the open living room window.
She had confessed that Kylo did mean something to her wolf.
And it’d fucking hurt to have to overhear it.
Was I not enough for her? Did Kylo feel the same way? Were they somehow … mates?
All these questions had plagued my mind throughout the night, kept me awake when I should’ve been asleep and preparing for another battle or trying desperately to get that flower to protect my Isabella.
I had fought to be the man Isabella needed and wanted for years. I wasn’t going to let Kylo take her away from me like this. I couldn’t. If I lost her, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, didn’t know what kind of man I would become.
What was an alpha without his mate? Nothing.
He was nothing.
The front door opened, and I shot up from my seat. “Isabella!” I called from my office, keeping my wolf under control so I didn’t push her away by sounding too angry or by being too overprotective, like she hated.
She pitter-pattered through the house.
Get mate, my wolf ordered. Get her now.
I resisted the urge to run out into the hallway, grab her by the wrist, and tell her never to go out alone on runs again because I didn’t want her to be alone while that flower was in Kylo’s possession. After watching rogues cut into Mom’s neck, tear out her throat, and die while Dad was fighting off another somewhere in the forest, it was so difficult for me and my wolf to let Isabella run free.
She might not think so, but I was working on it. I really was.
“Isabella!” I shouted again, my heart racing.
Every night that she was out with the Lycans, I lay awake, just thinking the worst: Is she hurt? Is she being chased by blood-hungry rogues too? Will I wake up to her dead on my front steps?
Isabella walked into the hallway in front of my office with her arms crossed. “What do you want, Roman?”
After demanding that my wolf stay quiet, I stepped toward her and lightly grasped her chin in my hand, stroking her jaw with my thumb. “You didn’t come home last night.”
“I know.”
“I was worried.”
“You’re always worried.”
I swallowed hard to suppress a growl. “Why didn’t you answer me when I mind-linked you this morning?”
She yanked herself out of my grip. “Because I had work to do, Roman. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the leader of the Lycans, not just a mate who can be at your beck and call whenever you want to get frisky.” She paused for a moment and then slumped her shoulders forward, defeated. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m tired, sore, and upset.”
Reaching out for her hand, I brushed my fingers against hers. “I don’t expect you to be here all day. I know you have work to do with the Lycans, but I can’t go hours without hearing from you. I need to know that you’re safe.”
When she closed her eyes, she pulled her fingers away from me. “Trust me.”
“If you want me to trust you, tell me who he is to you,” I whispered, needing to get it out.
All I wanted was for her to come out and admit it to me. I didn’t want to bring up that I’d overheard her conversation. I didn’t want to hear her lie to me anymore. I wanted her to be honest because this was eating me up on the inside.
Chin trembling, Isabella gazed up at me with teary eyes. I waited patiently for her, even when the tears started falling and she had to wrap her arms around her body to stop herself from shaking.
“I don’t want to say it out loud,” she whispered.
“Tell me,” I gently pleaded with her.
“You’re going to get jealous over it, and I hate when you get that way.”
I grasped her hands, needing to touch her, and held them tight to my chest. “I promise that I won’t, my dear Isabella.”
Her lips quivered, and she looked away from me. “My wolf feels connected to his. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how. We’ve mated with you, yet she …” She paused. “She wants him too.”
My heart shattered, broke into tiny little pieces, yet I held myself together for her. Moonlight glimmered into the room and shone off her hair. I tucked some behind her ear, my pulse racing.
“Do you still love me?” I whispered. “Does your wolf still love me?”
She wrapped her arms around my torso tightly and pulled me to her, resting her ear right above my heart. “Of course we do. You’re our mate, Roman. I couldn’t love anyone more than I love you.”
I pulled her closer to me, rested my chin on her head, and let a tear fall down my cheek. It wasn’t a sad tear, but a relieved one. My mate still wanted us. She loved us more than anyone. She wouldn’t let us go.
“That’s why I’m going to the Wolf Moon party this weekend,” she said, clutching on to me.
I tensed at the mention of the one party that only warriors born under the Wolf Moon could attend, which meant that Kylo would be there, alone with my mate, for an entire weekend.
“I need to go to figure out why I feel this way about him,” she continued.
“You can’t go,” I said, feeling my wolf stir under my skin. “He still has the flower. He’ll try to kill you with it—slip it into your drink or force it into your mouth while you’re sleeping. I can’t lose you, Isabella.”
She pulled away slightly. “I need to go. I leave tomorrow morning.”
“Isabella, you can’t. He’ll kill you.”
“Why are you so adamant t
hat he’ll try to kill me? We’ve been alone twice now, and he hasn’t tried once,” she said to me, grasping my face in her hands and following the streak mark from my tear with her gaze. “Help me understand, Roman.”
Horrifying memories from years ago raced through my mind. I had tried to suppress them for so long because it was shameful. I was embarrassed of how I’d acted back then, when I hadn’t known any better.
“I hurt Kylo in the past,” I said. “He’ll want to get back at me now that I have a mate.”
“How’d you hurt him?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Please, Roman. Don’t leave me in the dark again. Let me in.”
After sighing through my nose, I decided to open up all my regrets. “Scarlett was Kylo’s mate, and I took her from him.” I clenched my jaw and gazed at Isabella. “Before any of us turned eighteen, I used to sleep with Scarlett while Kylo watched. It was our thing. When Kylo turned eighteen and found out that Scarlett was his mate, some shit happened, and Scarlett dumped him for me.”
Isabella slowly released her hold on me and defensively crossed her arms over her chest to put space between us. “You slept with Scarlett more than once?” She shook her head and mumbled how that was a stupid question under her breath. “But … but even after you knew they were mates?”
“Isabella, I …” I tried to find words for it, wanted to tell her that it was my biggest regret. “My parents had both just died, and I … I felt so lonely. I was young and wasn’t thinking about how hurt he would be, just how hurt I felt.”
She backed away from me when I moved toward her. “You didn’t respect the mate bond at all?” she asked me, hurt so strong in her voice. “Did our first time … did it mean anything to you? If you didn’t care about them, why would you care about us?”
“Us being together means everything to me,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait to—”
“I don’t care that you didn’t wait to have sex with me, but a mate bond is so sacred. Knowing that they were mates and still sleeping with her … that’s …” She rubbed a hand over her face and shook her head. “I don’t even know how to feel.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “It’s one of my deepest regrets,” I admitted, feeling so ashamed.
There had been so much going on in my life at that moment, so much pain. I’d wanted to hurt Kylo for what his father had done to my parents and their relationship, their lives even.
When Isabella wrapped her arms around me, I tensed. I hadn’t expected her to touch me after what I had admitted. I hadn’t expected her to even want to sleep in the same bed with me tonight. I’d expected her to walk out and not come back until Monday—after the Wolf Moon party.
But she stared up at me with those big blue eyes that I had fallen in love with and said, “I still love you. The past is the past, Roman. I know you’re a better man now.” She kissed me on my lips, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the door. “Before I leave for the weekend, make love to me tonight and show me how much you care.”
Chapter 13
Kylo
“I want double security around the borders when I’m gone,” I said.
I gathered some papers in my office for my beta, Roger, to read about the chaos arising near Scarlett’s pack. She could die for all I cared, but whatever had been going on was spreading to packs closer to mine. And nobody was going to ruin everything I had rebuilt after my father tainted our family name.
Roger grabbed the papers, glancing down at them for a moment, and nodded.
“And nobody comes within a hundred meters of the property without you knowing about it.”
Roger sat on the black velvet sofa across from my desk, propping one leg onto the glass coffee table. “I don’t know why you’re making a huge deal out of this. It’s against divine law to attack during the annual celebration of the Wolf Moon warriors. Roman respects law.”
After stuffing some papers into my brown leather briefcase, I growled, “He will do anything for Isabella and anything to get back at me for what my father did to his family. He might respect divine law, but he’s angry and jealous. He will attack.”
I had known Roman for years. That man hadn’t changed.
“Then, stay and kill him now before he has a chance to hurt you for what your parents—”
“You’re not going to change my mind,” I said to Roger, claws slashing into my palms in an attempt to stay calm.
I couldn’t waste my chance at spending one weekend alone with Isabella. My wolf wouldn’t allow it. He had been riled up this entire week, thinking about the way she’d looked in my shirt while heading home from the gorge the other night. She had lifted the thin fabric to her nose and inhaled deeply, her blue eyes overcome with a wave of golden wolfish lust when she did.
Mate, my wolf said. We will see mate.
Clenching my jaw, I growled at the sound of that foolish word.
We don’t have a mate anymore, I scolded. Not after Scarlett.
Yet my wolf went on.
Mate. Mate. Isabella is—
A Wolf Moon warrior. That’s it. She means nothing to us.
But that was a lie. Less than four days ago, I had met her, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. She was incredibly intelligent, was the only person I had faced who made me actually back down from a fight, and was my ex–best friend’s mate.
After clearing my throat, I looked back at Roger. “I’m going to the party to see if Isabella will tell me about Roman’s plans to attack. I need to know if I can trust her.”
Moonlight flooded in through the windows. It was nearly one a.m. I’d have to leave at six a.m. if I wanted to get there in time for the gathering at nine a.m. A weekend full of war talk, training, and worshipping our goddess was a few hours away, and so was Isabella.
“Why do you need to trust her?”
I walked closer to the window and gazed out at the trail of moonflowers leading from the pack house into the forest toward the gorge. Isabella loved moonflowers; she had decorated the entire Lycan pack house with them.
“Because Roman doesn’t deserve her,” I said.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It doesn’t need to answer the question, Roger. That’s my answer.” I tucked my hands into my pockets. “Go home. I need to get some rest before I leave in the morning.”
He hopped off the couch and threw me a lighthearted smirk. “Rest? You’ll probably go running through the woods tonight, trying to find her.”
My canines lengthened. “Know your boundaries.”
When Roger shut the door behind him, I turned back to the window, rested my forehead against the glass, and took a deep breath. Last time my wolf had felt this connection with someone, Scarlett was my mate.
Isabella wasn’t. She couldn’t be.
After a few moments of convincing my wolf that we wouldn’t try to find her in the woods, I opened my closet door and dialed the code on my safe. Opening it up, the Wolf’s Flower sat peacefully in the center along with some extraneous papers. It had been there for nearly a month now.
Just like the Wolf Moon warriors, the flower could survive in even the worst conditions.
I carefully pulled the container top off and stared at it in amazement. This flower could destroy someone born under the Wolf Moon in seconds. It would burn them from the inside out, terrorize every part of them, hurt them more than going through heat ever could.
Once I placed it back into the container, I walked to my bedroom and stuffed it away in my suitcase. I was going to bring it to the party. For the one and only Isabella.
Chapter 14
Isabella
“How’d Roman take it when you left this morning?” Raj asked as we walked through the forest.
Hoots and howls drifted into the woods from beyond the large stone gates twenty yards ahead, where the Wolf Moon party was being held.
Supposedly, the property was a beautiful northern estate with lush green for
est, large pink tulip fields, and a glimmering lake with a waterfall. While I hadn’t been here before, I’d brushed up on the landscape’s layout this morning in case Kylo tried something on me, like Roman had suggested.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, approaching the guards.
When I’d left Roman this morning, he had still been sleeping. I placed a kiss on his forehead and stroked his thick brown hair that seemed to always curl onto his forehead. I had cried almost the entire way to the Lycans’ to meet Raj because I loved Roman so much and didn’t want whatever I had with Kylo to get in the way.
“That bad, huh?” Raj asked.
I shrugged and stood in line to gain entry onto the estate.
One of the guards nodded toward me. “Isabella, you may enter, but”—he turned to Raj—“you must leave.”
Raj nodded and pulled me in for a hug. “If Kylo tries anything on you, run,” Raj whispered into my ear. “Don’t drink or eat anything that he gives you. If he has that flower—”
“I know,” I said, rubbing his shoulder. “I won’t do anything stupid.”
After saying good-bye, I walked under the archway of moonflowers, beyond the gates, and into a beautiful tulip garden that seemed to stretch for miles. Someone grabbed my suitcase and handed me a glass of wine and keys to Cabin #5.
Sipping the wine, I looked around at the warriors. Some I recognized from surrounding packs while others must’ve lived far, far away. Years of battle, blood, and war stood around peaceful, soft pink flowers that swayed in the breeze. Every one of us had been through so much at such early ages. There were so many stories to tell, and I couldn’t wait to hear Kylo’s.
My fingers grazed against the tulips as I walked farther into the garden. The blazing orange sun beat down on my face, and I smiled in its warmth. Purring, my wolf led me deeper into the maze of hedges and flowers until we disappeared from the group.
Dragging me through the lush pinks and greens, gazing lovingly at the moonflowers twinkling in every which direction, sniffing the sweet scent of the tulips mixed with pine, my wolf continued.