Unbelievable Faith

by Jess Bryant

  “Let it go.” He said softly, just for Darius, “He’s hurting and he’s scared for Luna. We all are and emotions are running high. Let it go, D.”

  Darius clenched his jaw so hard the sound of bone crunching was audible in the still and silent room. But his eyes dropped to Leo and slowly they shifted back from gold to deep, dark brown. His face softened slightly as he came back to himself and when he gave a small nod, Leo stroked his cheek before releasing him completely.

  It was a powerful moment. One that told them all just how wrong Michael had been. Whatever was happening between those two, whatever doubts Darius might be harboring and any fight he might be putting up, it was clear right then and there that he was on the losing end of the battle. Leo had just calmed him from a full-on snarling rage, from a half-shift that could have gone terribly wrong if he’d attacked his Alpha. The power behind that kind of connection, that was the kind of power that could only come from a mate bond, sealed or not.

  Michael cleared his throat when Leo stepped away from Darius, “I’m sorry. He’s right. I’m just worried about Luna.”

  Darius was still frowning but he pushed out an unsteady breath and nodded, “We all are. That’s why we’re here. To figure out what happened and find a way to get her back.”

  He nodded, thankful for the easy acceptance of his apology. He and Darius were more like family than friends, and their relationship hadn’t been as simple as Alpha and Enforcer… ever. He knew that once this situation was handled he would have to do a better job of apologizing. He’d have to explain to Darius that despite whatever reservations the big man had about his own fate, that Michael fully supported him. But for right now, he was too worried about Luna to get distracted by anything, or anyone, else.

  He supposed he should just be thankful that Darius and Leo had even been here. They’d been in meetings all day but they’d broken up earlier in the day. Leo had gone to visit his sisters. Rafe and Darius had continued their plotting. And after the run in with Luna, Michael had gone back to his office to join them. If this had happened even another hour later, let alone the following day, on the full moon, they’d have been separated, each of them at their own homes and with their own packs. They were stronger together so he thanked whatever was left of fate being on his side and focused on what they could do as a team.

  “Darius, take a team and head into the woods.” He spoke to his Head Enforcer first, “Luna was headed to the lake to visit Zoey and she chose to shift and run. She’ll be along the path that snakes down next to the…”

  “She’s not in the woods.”

  Every head in the room turned to the young girl that still stood just inside the doorway. Nova’s eyes were red rimmed from her tears and full of the kind of pain and knowledge nobody her age should ever have to understand. She looked so damn small and so damn scared that Michael wanted to go to her and pull her into his arms, to hug her and tell her that he would save her sister, again, but since she was the Seer and she’d said no such thing he didn’t dare make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. Nova sniffled but stood a little straighter when all of the big, Alpha men looked her way.

  “What?” Michael frowned.

  “She’s not in the woods. Or, if she is, she isn’t where I can see her. I don’t think she’s on Moirae land anymore, or Crescent land for that matter.”

  “Well, where is she then?”

  “I… I don’t know.” Nova’s bottom lip trembled slightly and Michael scrubbed a hand over his face.

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “Easy.” Leo narrowed his gaze but before he could reprimand Michael for his tone again, Nova spoke up.

  “Someone took her. I think…” The girl shot a look at her brother and when he inclined his chin she sighed, “I think it’s the same person that’s been attacking your scouts, the same person I’ve felt was a danger to Luna from the beginning. She hates her. She always has.”

  Michael’s eyebrows winged up, “She?”

  “Sasha Devlin.” Leo’s lips were tight as he shook his head, “We grew up with her. I dated her for all of five minutes when we were kids. Didn’t take long for me to figure out what she was angling for. She wanted the status that went with being on the arm of a DeLuca wolf and when I cut her loose, she blamed Luna for coming between us. She’s been out to get her ever since. She was one of the first that took up with Maddox and I can only assume she’s decided to blame Luna for his death as well.”

  “He’s dead because he was a psychopath. Why would she still be loyal to a dead wolf?” Michael searched Leo’s face and then Nova’s before frowning, “And where is Maya? Why isn’t she here to tell me all of this? The rest of you are here but she’s the true wildcard so please tell me she hasn’t gone off half-cocked on her own.”

  “She’s still in the yard training.” Leo winced slightly when Michael gave him a disbelieving look, “When Nova received the vision, I was with her. We came straight here to you. We thought…”

  When her big brother trailed off Nova reached for his hand and squeezed, “We thought it would be best to have some sort of plan before we took the news to Maya that Luna was in danger again. Like you said. She’s a wildcard.”

  Something about those haunted brown eyes in the young girl’s face broke Michael’s heart. She’d seen too much. Far too much. He had a feeling she’d seen things that she’d tried to stop and that she would bear forever the weight of the knowledge that knowing didn’t necessarily change things. Sometimes knowing only made it worse. She dropped her eyes to the ground, as if she was afraid he would see something there she didn’t want him to and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d seen Maya doing something stupid if she’d told her sister first rather than him. Whatever it was Nova had seen Maya doing, he wouldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt his family and that included these strong, brave, resilient girls.

  “Nova?” He spoke softly and was rewarded with her raising her chin to look at him again. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  The girl glanced to her brother again but when Leo nodded she sighed. He expected her voice to waver but it didn’t. She was so damn strong and all he wanted was to hug her as she told him of the horrors that happened inside of her head.

  “Luna’s been shot. She took an arrow to the thigh in her wolf form. I didn’t see who shot it but I saw a figure knocking Luna unconscious. It was Sasha. I’m… ninety percent sure, it was Sasha. She was taking Luna somewhere but she was smart. She made turns and doubled back until…” Nova shook her head, “I couldn’t see where she took Luna. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Leo reassured his sister with a big hand on her shoulder.

  Darius surprised him again when he leaned down on one knee and tipped the girl’s chin back up, “Listen to your brother, little one. It’s going to be okay. Luna is Michael’s mate. He loves her. He’s not going to let anything or anyone take her away from him or from you ever again. Understand?”

  A dark head bobbed and Darius smiled softly before pushing back up to his feet. Leo bit his lip and looked away, clearly unwilling to let the rest of them see what he was thinking in that moment. Michael didn’t blame him. He was a little choked up himself seeing the big man soothing the small girl.

  He cleared his throat, “Nova, can you tell me what it is this Sasha person wants? Is it money? Is Luna being held for ransom? Does she want us to stop hunting her and let her go? Pardon her for her part in the Maddox uprising? What does she want?”

  Nova shook her head, tears welling in her eyes again, “That’s the thing… I know what she wants. I could feel it. I could feel how much she hates all of us but mostly Luna. She blames her for what happened to Maddox.”

  “What does she want?”

  “She wants us dead. Every single DeLuca, she wants to kill us all. She’s going to kill Luna first and then she’s going to come for the rest of us.”

  Michael felt his wolf surge for the surface and barely held his skin. He couldn�
��t contain the snarl that tore out of his throat. The others in the room bristled and the Moirae pack wolves whined at the power of his tone.

  His teeth had elongated with anger but he managed to speak nonetheless and he kept a steady gaze on Nova, hoping his words would reassure her that he was serious, “Luna isn’t dying. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not for another sixty years at least. She’s mine and nobody is going to take her away from me. Nobody. I’ve lost too many people I love already. I’m not losing Luna too. I promise.”

  Chapter 21

  Luna woke up slowly, her head aching and her stomach churning. She had to slam her eyes back shut and take a couple of deep breaths to steady herself before she tried again. This time when she opened her eyes, she squinted and looked around, trying to figure out where she was and why it felt like her skull was about to crack open.

  She shut her eyes again and despite the ache, tried to think. The last thing she remembered she’d been running through the woods. She’d intended to go and visit Zoey. She’d promised Michael she would be safe and that she would stay on the path but she hadn’t. Her wolf had seen a rabbit and she’d gone chasing after it. Luna hadn’t stopped her, not until it was too late and the danger had seeped in past her excitement to chill her to the bone.

  It came rushing back to her then.

  The rustling in the nearby brush. The hiss of the arrow as it left the crossbow. The searing pain as it tore through her thigh and dropped her to the ground. Then she remembered the tall, lithe woman with the jet black hair and burning gold eyes that had stepped from the bushes to snarl at her and then, when Luna had tried to crawl away, had slammed the butt of the crossbow into her forehead, knocking her out.

  Sasha. Luna felt a rush of bile climb her throat and had to close her eyes and force it back down. Sasha had somehow survived the Moirae attack and she’d come after her. She’d shot her and if the anger and hatred in her eyes before she’d knocked Luna out had been any indication, she intended to kill her.

  Only she was still alive, for now, which meant she had to figure a way out of here and fast.

  With what felt like a rush of relief, Luna managed to glance around enough to take in her surroundings. She wasn’t back in that awful basement. Not this time. From her position on the ground with her hands tied behind her back what she could see wasn’t much.

  She was in a small cabin that stank of disuse. The floor was dusty and a sheen of leaves, dirt and twigs littered the corners. There was a large plaid couch that looked older than she was directly in front of her. On the small, scarred coffee table was the scent of the blood that she couldn’t get out of her nose.

  Piles of bandages and ointments, wraps and oils were tossed about haphazardly. It was both a good sign and a confusing one. If Sasha was injured, it might give Luna the edge she needed. But if Sasha was hurt, why wasn’t she healing? It had been almost a month since the Moirae attack. If she’d sustained injuries escaping she should be fully healed by now. So had she been injured since? By one of the scout teams that had come back hurt after combing the woods?

  Luna’s head hurt too badly to make sense of it all. She closed her eyes again and focused on trying to breathe through the pain. She strained her ears, listening, trying to figure out as much about her surroundings as she could.

  Birds chirped outside. There was the usual rustle of small animals in the woods, confirming that she must still be in the forest. But it was the sound of footsteps that alerted her she wasn’t alone. Footsteps going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, as the person paced and mumbled to themselves so low that she couldn’t make out the words.

  The pacing was nearby, but it didn’t sound like it was in the same room so Luna squirmed a little, testing the bindings on her wrists. It was tight and sharp-edged, cutting into her skin, and she deduced that she must be bound with zip-ties, clever really, and no doubt part of the supplies that had been stolen during the last raid on the Crescent pack. She pulled at them with all her strength but all she succeeded in doing was slicing her skin open and she bit off a cry of pain that would have attracted the attention of her kidnapper.

  Luna lay still for another moment, trying to get her bearings and figure out a plan. She needed a plan. She had to get out of here. Sasha had always hated her but the way she’d looked at Luna in those woods left little doubt she despised her now. The scar on her bicep from the other woman tingled with the memory of the pain she’d enjoyed inflicting and this time, Luna knew she would do worse.

  Much worse.

  She couldn’t wait around for someone to save her this time. Michael would come. He would find her, eventually. The mate bond would lead him to her but that would take time. It was more of a general sense of direction than pinpoint GPS. Besides, if Sasha was as smart as she’d always claimed she was then she’d have covered their tracks and their scent making tracking them almost impossible. Time wasn’t something Luna had and she couldn’t spent a second more of it lying on the floor, cursing herself for getting into this situation and hoping someone would come to rescue her.

  It was up to her to save herself.

  Another glance around told her that there was a window nearby and since she couldn’t see the door, or the place where her captor was pacing and mumbling, Luna rolled to her side and pulled her legs up to her chest. Her thigh stung like a bitch, reminding her of the arrow that had gone through it, but it was healing. She couldn’t be sure how long she’d been out but the hole in her skin had already closed and she could feel the muscle beneath knitting itself back together. She’d been out a while then, she supposed, which meant that Michael and the others knew she was missing.

  She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a very bad thing. She didn’t want any of her family or friends rushing in here to save her and getting themselves injured or worse. She wasn’t even sure why Sasha had kept her alive for this long unless that’s what she wanted, to lure the others in, and Luna refused to let that happen.

  With a little bit of maneuvering she could scoot herself across the floor, though she had to bite her lip to keep the yelp of pain in her throat. Her leg ached and stung with the movement but she pushed through, using all of her strength to inch her way across the dirty hardwood floor towards the wall with the window. She was breathing hard by the time she reached the wall and used it as leverage to sit upright but as soon as she did, she cringed.

  Through her own labored breathing and the distraction of the pain, she hadn’t heard Sasha come into the room. Or, rather, now that she was upright and could see the rest of the space, she realized Sasha had been in the room all along, she’d just been on the other side of the one-room cabin. Now she was standing just behind the couch, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted in a cruel sneer as she watched Luna struggle to a sitting position.

  There was a time, back when they were kids, that Luna had been jealous of Sasha’s beauty. She could have been a model. Tall and thin with jet black tresses that were always perfectly straight, cascading over her shoulders in a silky waterfall that had never seen an ounce of frizz, Luna had longed for that kind of easy beauty. She’d envied the exotic way Sasha’s hazel eyes tilted up at the corners and the delicate nose and chin that were all perfectly proportioned.

  Next to her, Luna had always felt plain, messy and too boyish. She constantly fought her naturally curly hair in the Louisiana humidity. Her nose was too wide and her mouth was too plump. Her eyes were just a plain ol’ basic brown. It had taken a long time for Luna to come to terms with the body she’d been given and even longer still to appreciate it.

  But now, mated to Michael, she saw the things he loved when she looked in the mirror. He said her curls were adorable. He thought her mouth was sexy. He said her breasts were the perfect size to fit his hands. In fact, he said her entire body was perfect, made to fit against him in every way because she’d been made for him.

  He made her feel beautiful and loved, cherished and adored, and now, looking at Sasha she didn’t see
the gorgeous girl she’d known in the past but instead a mean, angry stranger.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” The other woman hissed.

  Luna narrowed her eyes, “Home, actually.”

  “Hell maybe. Not home.” Sasha snorted, her claws digging into the couch as she leaned over it menacingly, “You know I had a plan for you? I had this whole thing worked out. Been casing that Moirae compound for weeks just waiting for my way in and then you screwed everything up. You always screw everything up, Luna! First with Leo and then with Mad and now this, well this is the last thing you screw up for me!”

  The woman was crazy. Luna worried her bottom lip. Instead of her usually sleek appearance she was rumpled and disheveled. Her hair was dirty, with twigs in it, and dirt streaked her face. Her eyes were wild, flashing to gold and back too quickly for her to be in any sort of control. Her claws were still extended, cutting into the old couch, and Luna wished there wasn’t a wall behind her. She really wanted to put more distance between her and this woman.

  She’d always wondered if Sasha wasn’t a few cards short of a full deck. She was wild. She could practically be feral. She’d had trouble learning to control her wolf and even when she had, she’d lashed out at the slightest provocation. But from the looks of it, she’d truly gone off the deep end this time and Luna didn’t there was anything coming back

  She chose her words carefully, “I didn’t ruin things between you and Leo. You weren’t fated. He broke up with you years ago. That had nothing to do with me.”

  Sasha hissed, “And Mad?”

  “Maddox was crazy, Sasha.” She snapped and then cringed when the woman growled at her.

  “Don’t you dare say that! He wasn’t crazy. He was a visionary! His only mistake was in believing you were the key to taking control of the pack. If he’d just listened to me…” Sasha’s face fell and a look of utter despair filled her voice, “If he’d just listened he’d still be alive.”