by E. M. Moore
The rear door of the SUV opens. Jonah hops in first, and my wolf follows, settling next to him. Johnathan Livestrong sits in the driver’s seat. He meets my wolf’s gaze in the rearview mirror and nods. His sharp jaw feathers, and like his son, he’s in complete security mode. My wolf howls at the feeling of warmth and family surrounding us. I’ve gone from believing everyone is against me to having a select few put themselves on the line for me. I mistakenly thought the whole pack was rotten just because of a few, but I was wrong.
“We’ll have to be careful,” Mr. Livestrong states, locking eyes with his son.
Jonah tangles his hands in my wolf’s fur. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”
“Understood. I’m behind you both one hundred percent. Lydia isn’t dumb. She won’t want to ruin the Greystone name.”
My wolf growls, and Jonah scratches behind her ear. Both of us need this to be over with soon.
Mr. Livestrong smiles. “We have to get her to listen. Like the rest of that family, she’s stubborn as hell.” He slows the SUV as we approach the Council building. Stopping by the side of the road, he puts the car in park.
His walkie-talkie chirps, and a crackling voice comes over the line. “Lydia arriving now.”
My wolf stands, tail swishing. Lydia Greystone is threatening my family, me, and my mate. My animal instinct wants retaliation. Now.
Johnathan picks up the walkie-talkie and presses a side button. “Lead her to the meeting room and watch from the outside.”
Jonah lowers his voice and leans toward my wolf. “Since we run security for her as well, Dad’s getting her alone so we can talk privately. None of our team knows what we’re about to do.”
Well, that’s useful. I was envisioning us running in and having to take the guards out, but I forgot that I’m literally paired with a member of alpha security. The less people who get hurt, the better. Hope starts to build inside me, and my wolf’s tongue lolls out of her mouth in anticipation.
Mr. Livestrong pops the rear door open. “Five minutes,” he says to Jonah.
My mate nods, then hops out. My wolf follows after him, and they make their way into the tree line. Instead of shifting like I assumed he would, he leads her further into the woods. He jumps down an embankment, moves some branches, and uncovers a steel door hidden in a rock wall. He grins over his shoulder. “Emergency exit for the alpha. It leads straight to a secret door in the meeting room.”
Holy shit. Did he and his father figure all this out when they were on the phone earlier? I’m impressed.
The tunnel has a dank, dirt floor with concrete walls and ceilings. Jonah jogs down it, and my wolf is on his heels. They get to a wooden door, and Jonah holds his ear to it. With my sensitive wolf hearing, I can tell it’s quiet on the other side until hinges creak and voices rise up. One of them is most definitely Johnathan Livestrong’s while the other has to be Lydia.
Jonah peers down with a strained face. His muscles ripple as if he’s one step away from turning. “Please,” he begs, “stay behind me.”
My wolf nods, stomach in knots, and he pushes the secret door open. She slips out after him, sticking to his side like he said.
Lydia turns, jumping at our intrusion. When she sees Jonah and then finds my wolf at his hip, she growls, fur rippling down her arms. “What is this?”
Jonah’s dad reaches his arms out in a placating gesture. “Calm yourself, Lydia. We’re here to talk.”
She sneers, backing into the desk. Her gaze darts around at the three intruders until she focuses on my wolf. “You are a shame to our race.”
A snarl rips from my wolf’s throat.
Jonah moves in front of her. “You will speak to my mate with respect.”
“She threatens your line, and yet you would stick up for her?” She turns from Jonah to Johnathan. “And you’re backing him? Johnathan, you must show your son that this isn’t the way. Her family tricked fate. She needs to leave, if not more. That will be for the Council to decide.”
Jonah snaps, his fingers tightening into my wolf’s nape. Fur ripples over his arms; his teeth elongate. I can smell how close his wolf is to the surface, and my wolf practically paws at the floor in anticipation, ready to take this bitch out. If it weren’t for Jonah’s steady hand on her nape, she would’ve already lunged.
“Calm yourself, Lydia,” Johnathan barks. “He’s full territorial, and you’re bound to get yourself killed. We came here to talk. Not to fight.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. All you’ve done is further ruined your family’s reputation. How dare you confront someone in the alpha’s bloodline like this?”
I nudge Jonah to get him to talk. He studies me, his eyes a wolfy yellow before he peers back at her. “How dare you threaten one of your own?”
Lydia glowers. Her breathing deepens. A sickening feeling in my stomach tells me there’s about to be a fight. Jonah won’t be able to hold back if I’m threatened. I’m muzzled in my wolf form, and if I shift, Jonah will go apeshit, and we’ll have even more to deal with.
“She’s a Greystone, Lydia,” Johnathan finally announces. “You have the proof that she’s not from a mated pair, but how easy will it be to prove she’s a Greystone? Think about what this scandal will do to your family.”
Her wolf retreats, and she throws her head back, her musical laugher threading through the room. The hair on my wolf’s nape stands. I can’t believe I’m related to this woman. We couldn’t be more different.
“You laugh,” Jonah warns, “but we know it to be true. We’ll get the necessary tests to prove it.”
“I don’t need to know who she belongs to. All I need to know is that she shouldn’t exist.”
“Think about it,” Johnathan commands. “She paired with my son. They’re true mates. If Kinsey was from a family lower in the pack, by all accounts of what we think we know about pairings, that shouldn’t have happened.”
I growl at that, but it does work in my favor so there’s not much I can really say. Mating with Jonah proves more than one of my pack’s theories wrong. Since I didn’t come from a fated pairing, I shouldn’t have been able to mate with anyone. I knew that everything we were ever told is wrong. Whether the pack knows it’s wrong is yet to be seen. They could be perpetuating the lie for their own purposes. Even Jonah said that Lydia was a purist. Maybe their family wants to keep the blood lines pure by all means necessary?
“What I know,” Lydia hisses, “is that her mother went outside her bond. She’ll be punished to the fullest extent, and this mutt will be cast out where she should’ve been all along.”
“You will not touch her,” Jonah growls.
The door bursts open, and my wolf springs to attention. Time slows. A man wearing the Livestrong family crest enters the room, surveying it, and when his gaze settles on me, he raises his weapon and fires.
The bullet hits my left flank, and my wolf howls, falling to the ground in a blitz of pain. Jonah shifts in the blink of an eye and lunges for the man. His father intercepts, tackling his son’s wolf to the ground in a bear hug and then wraps his strong legs around its torso, locking him in place.
A swarm of men enter the room and surround us. My wolf attempts to scramble to her feet, but the pain in her side flares, and she ends up sprawling out with a whimper.
Lydia sneers. “Get her.”
Jonah and I catch one another’s gazes, and in that few seconds, I feel the power of losing him. A howl bursts from his russet muzzle. It echoes around the room, slides through me, and sits in my chest as it cracks.
29
Jonah struggles against his father’s grip, clawing and pawing. He’s crazed, maniacal, begging to be released. A careening cry crawls up my wolf’s throat that makes him howl in response.
Blood seeps through gashes in his father’s shirt and shoulders, but Jonah doesn’t stop fighting. Johnathan’s face is filled with agony and love as he holds his son down, and the only thing me or my wolf can feel is relief. If he’d lunged and
taken out anyone in this room, it would be over for him. Murder is murder, no matter if it’s over your fated mate or not.
The same man who shot my wolf walks forward, and she shimmies out of his way, but her injured leg won’t move. The pain is bearable, though—most likely due to the adrenaline coursing through her. “Take her to the cell!” Lydia orders. “Johnathan, get your son out of here, and I expect you to deal with this before I get really angry.”
My wolf growls. The man closest to her bends down to grab her by the nape, but she snaps at him, taking the tip of his finger off. His eyes turn wolf, and a rumble starts in his chest, but she snarls right back, yapping with a ferocity that scares even me. The man backs away, head bowing.
Holy fuck. He’s submitting.
She does it again until he withdraws all the way. Chaos ensues, and she again tries to get to her feet. Lydia barks more orders, telling more of Johnathan’s men who’ve entered to shoot me, but my wolf scrambles to all fours and lunges at Lydia, propelling off the table between them, aiming right for her shoulder. More weapons fire, and another ripping agony hits the same flank but my wolf bears down, growling in her face.
Internally, I’m screaming at her. I’m telling her the whole story. Everything that my wolf can’t voice, I’m telling her in my head. I am a Greystone. My mother did what she did to save her mate. Shane is my biological father.
Lydia’s eyes bulge out of her head as I snap at her jaw.
Gripping my front legs to steady my wolf, she stares deep into her gaze. Lydia’s lips curl. True fear settles over her. “Leave the room! Everyone!” she calls out before shifting underneath me.
Lydia rolls my wolf to her back, and wrestles with her, each of them trying to gain the upper hand until they break apart and face each other, snapping and growling.
Her pure black wolf circles mine, and my wolf stays alert. The meeting room door closes, leaving Jonah and his dad, who are still locked in a battle, the only other two people left in the room.
She snarls. I am a Greystone.
Her voice sounds in my head. I’m taken aback at first but fuck, it makes sense. We’re both Greystones, so we can communicate in our shifter forms. I growl right back at her. Her wolf’s look and demeanor—everything—appears as if she’s trying to make me submit but I muster all the power I have inside me and resist the urge to bow to her.
I am Greystone.
Lydia’s wolf’s ears shift straight up, straining. Right away, her stature changes. Her squinty wolf eyes loom closer. My wolf backs up, not trusting the sudden dip of aggression in the air.
Pain still emanates from our two wounds, but she’s already feeling better. Stories I’ve been told all my life are starting to make sense. I haven’t been injured while a wolf since this form is new to me, but it’s well known that shifters heal better when we’re our animal selves. Even so, this healing is impressively fast.
You can hear me.
My wolf growls again. Lydia has backed her into the wall, and she gets antsy, searching for a way to get around her or move through her.
As she comes closer, my wolf starts to pant, effectively freaking out. The blue of Lydia’s wolf eyes darken before her whole gaze widens in surprise as she peers into my wolf’s. It’s such a human gesture in a wolf that it throws me off guard.
Shane? her voice asks in my head.
My wolf starts forward, walking her back. He was my father’s best friend. He and my mother saved my father because he’s sterile. Your brother offered to procreate with my mother so they could have me. I am a Greystone. You already know it’s true.
She sits, lifting her muzzle in the air, her proud wolf features as aloof as her human side is.
You will not hurt my family, I continue. It won’t be hard to prove to everyone else that I’m a Greystone. Jonah already has the DNA samples. If you move forward with your plan, you will regret it.
Her lip lifts in a snarl. Shane is stupid.
That doesn’t make him any less my biological father.
Our silent conversation works. She’s backing down just as Johnathan thought she would.
“We can forget this all right now,” Johnathan negotiates, voice strained. “No one will know what happened. Keeping this secret is in the interest of both parties, Lydia. All you have to do is tell the Council that the DNA test was wrong. This won’t have been the first time that the Greystones have done something to save each other.”
A warning hum emanates from Lydia’s chest. I can hear the threat in her tone, but I also understand her because the same blood runs through our veins. My stomach flips over in disgust, but in essence, that fact may have just saved me. She knows who I am. She can’t deny me because she feels it as I do. We may both resent it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
She shifts, her wolf’s back arching before landing on all fours, and I see way more of Lydia Greystone than I ever wanted. “To be clear, you are no family of mine. You’re an abomination.”
The once subdued Jonah growls, and his father returns the sentiment.
“However,” she says, speaking over them. “Keeping this secret does seem to be in everyone’s best interest. During my meeting with the Council, I will be telling them that the initial tests were wrong. As long as you keep your story to yourself, I will keep mine.”
I want to shift and talk to her but being completely naked in front of my mate’s father is not on my list of things to do today. She shifted on purpose so she could get the last word. Thankfully, Johnathan speaks up. “You have their word as long as you keep yours. Nothing will happen to the Walkers, and they will be cleared of all charges. Nothing will happen to them in the future either. Put this to bed for good, Lydia.”
She nods once. “And Kinsey will never try to gain any sort of importance from the Greystone line.”
My wolf growls, the sound ripping from her throat. I don’t want anything to do with the fucking Greystones!
Johnathan speaks for me. “I assure you, she has no interest in becoming a member of your family.”
Lydia narrows her gaze as if she doesn’t believe him. Let her believe what she wants. Through my eyes, her family is what’s wrong with wolf society. I have no desire to be family with someone who thinks there should be a pack hierarchy, who keeps wolves locked away in the Rejected Mates Academy every day because they believe they know better than fate.
No, despite what I fantasized when I was little, I have no intention of becoming a Greystone.
“Kinsey,” Johnathan calls for me.
My wolf peers over at him, zeroing in on his torn shirt and bloody scratches.
“Come to Jonah so he will calm down. Please.”
She moves toward him, giving Lydia a wide berth as if she still might try to take us out.
Johnathan strokes his son’s fur. “See that, she’s not even limping.” Interestingly enough, he’s correct. Johnathan smiles at my wolf as she gets closer. “Must be the Greystone blood.”
Lydia scoffs, but fuck her. I don’t like the idea either.
When my wolf is within reach of Jonah’s, he nuzzles her. She returns the sentiment, and Johnathan whispers for us to leave. He keeps a secure hold on his son as he opens the secret door and then nudges us both out. Jonah turns around once we’re in the tunnel, and Johnathan, standing there in a ripped shirt with healing injuries, nods.
Jonah whines. The light in the tunnel fades as his father closes the door on us. My wolf’s superior vision kicks in, allowing me to see. He places his paw over my wolf’s shoulder, sniffing her. He nudges the leg she got shot twice in, but she barely feels anything except a numb sort of pain. It’s a nuisance more than anything else.
We amble toward the exit. Slowly but surely, light from the entrance comes into view. My wolf follows his out, and he shifts into his human form so he can close the door, locking away the Council and Lydia Greystone.
Finally, I can breathe easier.
I make Jonah wait with me by the Council building until my
parents are released. Once we physically see them leave with Johnathan Livestrong, I truly let reality sink in. Everything actually turned out the way it should have. My parents will no longer be targeted as the “evidence” came back in their favor, the Council now has no reason to stop me from leaving Greystone Academy, and Jonah and I can finally start our lives together.
Jonah nuzzles me, and we start toward my parents’ house, following the black SUV carrying them inside. The weight lifted off my shoulders practically makes me fly all the way there. Jonah is hot on my heels, nipping and swatting at me playfully.
Maybe it isn’t so bad being a Lunar Pack shifter.
30
The echoing footsteps of Ms. Ebon’s heels off the academy’s floor reminds me of my first night here. Suddenly, I wish I’d allowed Jonah to come in with me, but when she stepped out of the front doors when we arrived, lifting an arched brow as we sat in his idling car, I knew this was something I had to do alone.
Also, I can’t complain since he’s pretending to go home, but he’s actually going to meet me in my room. He can’t bring himself to leave me right now.
The academy halls are empty, and even though everything is settled on the Lydia Greystone front, my stomach twists just walking back in here. In front of me, Ms. Ebon swings open her office door and strides inside. She’s been quiet the entire trip down the hallway, and I suddenly feel like I’m in so much trouble. I follow her, the office more stifling than I remember it. The huge door closes, and Ms. Ebon spins on her heels to face me.
Except, this isn’t the Ms. Ebon I’m used to. Her eyes are glassy. Dark circles sit heavy under her lashes as she studies me. I’m a little banged up, limping slightly from the injuries but since I was shot with a freaking gun and am somehow still able to move, I call that a win.