Moonlight Wolves Box Set

by Sarah J. Stone

  Annie couldn’t help but wonder where her mother was, and what she was doing. Did she decide to just start her life over, and get a new job in a different state? Did she get a new husband, a new family? A new daughter? Did she ever even think about Annie or her father?

  Annie also felt that her mother had made such a rash decision. Didn’t she know that her father would protect her, no matter what the costs would be? Her father was the strongest and most capable shifter and man she knew. Didn’t her mother stop and think for a moment that maybe they could get through it?

  Annie desperately wanted to know what her mother was thinking in those moments before she decided to bail. Maybe she just didn’t want to live that life anymore, and the Elders gave her a reason to leave. Annie didn’t want to think like that, though. She wanted to believe that her mother knew what the Elders would do, that she was a few steps ahead of everyone else, and decided to make an ultimate sacrifice. She also wanted to believe that her mother thought of her every night before she went to bed. She wanted to believe that her mother missed her.

  While Annie could’ve been listening to depressing music and crying over her mother’s choices, she instead decided to recruit Thea to a girl’s night at the house, complete with cheesy romance movies and a lot of alcohol.

  “Are you ready to hear my dumb decision of the day?” Annie asked Thea as they were both laying on the living room couches, margaritas and junk food all around them and an 80s film that they had both seen hundreds of times on in the background.

  “But, of course,” Thea answered, flipping on her stomach, so she could look at Annie. “Does it have anything to do with the gorgeous rogue that is so into you?”

  “Ugh, Kato said the same thing!” Annie told her, laughing even though her face was red. “But yeah, it does.”

  “Oh, you have to tell me every single steamy detail.” Thea laughed, making Annie cover her face in embarrassment and tell her the whole story, starting from them meeting in the forest to their kiss in his hotel room.

  “And now, I’m just in this huge dilemma,” Annie said. Annie wanted to also tell Thea about her mother, but she felt like it would just freak Thea out more than anything. After all, Thea was a human that knew, and Annie didn’t want her becoming scared that the Elders would come for her, too.

  “What, you don’t know if you should pursue this thing with Lukas?” Thea asked, eating popcorn avidly.

  “Even associating or chatting with a rogue is strictly forbidden. They are considered evil, but Lukas is here, helping us out with the whole Kaiser thing,” Annie broke off after she saw Thea’s confused look. “I’ll tell you about that whole thing later. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I literally can’t be around the guy without wanting to have sex with him. But if anyone ever found out, I’d be dead. I’d be worse than dead, they’d make me a rogue and then they’d kill Lukas.”

  “Couldn’t you guys just, I don’t know, keep it a secret? This isn’t marriage or anything, you know. Maybe you guys have sex, get it out of your system, and then that’s the end. You both can go back to being your weird selves.”

  Annie didn’t want to tell her that she thought her feelings ran deeper than just a sexual infatuation with Lukas. She didn’t want to be known as the girl that fell in love with a rogue. Hell, she was even scared to tell her best friend, a human, who wouldn’t judge her in any way. But saying her feelings aloud would make them real, and Annie didn’t know if she was ready for that.

  “I don’t even know why he’s a rogue, though,” Annie reminded her. “He could’ve done something horrible or killed someone! I literally have no idea what he’s done.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I have and he cut me off and changed the subject,” Annie told her, remembering the day they’d met when she asked him.

  “Yeah, but have you asked him recently?” Thea questioned. “Maybe he’d feel more comfortable telling you now versus when you originally asked him, which was also around the same time you were more than comfortable with killing him.”

  “You’re right,” Annie said brightly, sitting up straight with a new idea forming in her mind. “Maybe when I learn whatever horrible thing he’s done, I’ll be cured of this ridiculous crush I have. Maybe then I’ll be able to go back to my hating phase!”

  “Okay, but what if he became a rogue by choice, and he didn’t do anything wrong or kill anyone?” Thea asked, sipping a cup of hot chocolate and acting like she was a wise woman, giving Annie great advice.

  Annie sighed, knowing exactly what would happen. If Lukas’s story turned out to be some relatable or heartbreaking story where he didn’t do something horrible, she knew exactly what would happen.

  She would fall even harder for him.

  Chapter 17

  Lukas was packing his bag when there was a knock on his door. He ignored it. He needed to get out of this town, out of Maine, out of this country. He needed to put some distance between him and Annie, and he couldn’t even think of how she was feeling after he kissed her. Though, he kept on remembering the way she welcomed his kiss, the way she pulled him to her . . .

  Shaking his head, Lukas zipped up his one bag, trying to keep his heart at bay as he planned his getaway. The person at the door knocked again, but he continued to ignore it. He didn’t want to deal with whoever it was. He needed to leave, even though he desperately wanted to run to Annie’s house and be with her.

  The knocking at the door finally stopped, and Lukas felt he could finally hear himself in his head as he went through his plan of how he was going to get out of town without running into any shifters. He thought about going to say goodbye to Hann or Annie, making sure he left on good terms with the only shifters that had ever treated him fairly since he’d become a rogue, but he quickly dismissed the idea. That would only make his decision to leave harder for him.

  He sat on his hotel bed, thinking of all the things that had happened since he’d met Hann and his pack. Since he’d met Annie. He didn’t want to think about how he had let himself relax. How he had let himself be happy for just a slight second. He didn’t deserve that. He knew that. But yet, he felt like there could be a life for him here in Maine with the Moonlight Pack.

  Lukas laughed bitterly to himself in his desolate motel room, leaning back on his bed, his bag falling to the ground. He brought his hands up to his face, rubbing his skin as he felt himself wanting to linger just for a little bit longer. Maybe he could stay in Maine until Kaiser showed up? Or he could go to the nearest town, then come and help when he heard word that Kaiser and his group of murderers had shown up.

  No, that wouldn’t work. Even if he was a town over, he would feel the need to be with Annie. And he couldn’t do that to her. If anyone in her pack, anyone at all, found out that she had even touched Lukas in a somewhat romantic or intimate way, they would start calling for her head. They could even make her a rogue like him, and he didn’t want her to live that fate. She didn’t deserve that. If they found out about their kiss . . . all hell would break loose.

  Straightening up and getting off of the steadiest bed he’d had in months, Lukas grabbed his bag and started walking to his door before he could talk himself out of his plan again. He had to leave. Hann would understand. He had to.

  Lukas opened the door, stepping out into the cool, misty air. He shut the door behind him, not looking back at his most recent home.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” a voice called from his left. He sighed, knowing exactly who it was by the way his blood shot through his veins. His heartbeat quickened as he smelt her scent, and he cursed mentally at himself for not realizing that it was her knocking at his door earlier. After all, who else would it be?

  Annie walked into his view, her arms crossed over her chest, a look of anger mixed with surprise on her face. Lukas sighed and tried to calm himself, not looking at her in her eyes. He couldn’t.

  “I’m leaving,” he muttered, looking off into the distance.
He didn’t want her to be here. He didn’t want to be having this conversation.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice quieting a little bit. He wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t.

  “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” he told her, still looking off into the distance with a tight grip on his bag.

  “So, you’re just going to run off to God knows where, right before Kaiser comes here to enact revenge on my father?” she accused him, and he could hear the anger rise in her voice. He felt a stab in his heart. “What was even the point of you coming here and warning us? What was the point of staying here for a few days?”

  “I’ve told you about Kaiser, now I need to go,” he said, beginning to walk away from Annie and towards the parking lot. He really couldn’t do this right now.

  “Or is this about what happened with us?” He almost didn’t hear her whisper it, but he stopped cold in his tracks when she spoke. The hurt he could hear in her voice made him want to die, but he didn’t turn around. He gripped his bag tighter, trying to find the words to tell her what exactly she meant to him. He was protecting her, or, at least, he was trying to.

  Slowly, Lukas turned around to see Annie staring at him, her arms still crossed. He met her eyes, instantly hating himself when he saw the hurt there. A light breeze blew through the empty parking lot, making her brown hair blow slightly in the wind. He wanted to walk to her and pull her into his arms, making her feel warmth instead of the night chill. Sighing, he walked closer to her, fighting the temptation to touch her.

  “I’m a rogue, Anastasia,” he managed to say, not knowing how to explain he was just trying to protect her from what would happen if she became associated with him.

  “I’m not an idiot, Lukas,” she snapped.

  Looking around, Lukas knew they shouldn’t be talking in public like this. Even though he didn’t see anyone anywhere close to them, one could never be too sure a shifter wasn’t hidden and secretly listening. Even though he really didn’t want to take her back to his hotel room, it was the only option for them right now. He knew it was going to kill him to see her in that room so close to his bed.

  “Let’s talk about this upstairs,” he told her briskly, walking ahead and making sure that she followed him. He smiled to himself slightly when he heard her footsteps right behind him.

  Chapter 18

  Once they got back to the hotel room, Annie watched as Lukas dropped his bag on the floor and turned on the hotel television for some background noise. She sat down in one of the chairs that surrounded a little table in the corner. Lukas walked over slowly, not looking at her, and sat down across the table from her.

  She didn’t understand this huge change in him. She knew he was probably thrown off by their kiss earlier, as was she. But leaving? Not staying with her and her father to fight off Kaiser and his merry band of murderers? Did he really not see a problem with that? She wasn’t letting him go without a fight, that much she knew.

  “Tell me how you became a rogue,” she told him directly. He looked at her with surprise in his eyes, but she didn’t care. She wanted to talk, and she didn’t want him to leave. She needed to hear what he had done, maybe then she could put her feelings in check.

  “It’s a long story that you wouldn’t like,” he told her, leaning back in his chair and sighing. He obviously didn’t want to tell her.

  “I promise I won’t judge you,” she said. “I have no reason to.”

  Lukas sighed, clearly wrestling with himself about whether or not he should tell her about how and why he became a rogue. It was a serious issue. She obviously didn’t have any rogue friends, but she could imagine that they didn’t like to tell their story to people.

  “My father was the alpha of my pack back in Arizona,” he started, pausing as he got lost in his memories. Annie looked at him, a little surprised that he was telling her his story. She couldn’t believe that his father was alpha, it wasn’t often that an alpha’s child became a rogue. It was unheard of, really. “He was a great alpha. Kind, generous, strong. Everything an alpha needed to be with a rowdy group of shifters. However, he had enemies, even in our own little community.”

  Lukas paused, clearly trying to find the words to tell the story. Annie began to feel uncomfortable that she’d asked him to tell her. Clearly, this was hard for him to talk about.

  “There was this man, around the same age as my father, that had been rivals with my dad since they were kids,” Lukas continued, running a hand across his face as if he was becoming weary just thinking about the past. “They grew up together, and this guy, Randall, was always mad that my father became the alpha of the pack instead of him. Everyone knew that there was bad blood between them, but both Randall and my dad were charismatic guys. Everyone loved them, and they would just shrug off the bitterness.

  “Until one night, it got to be too much,” Lukas paused, searching for the words. “Randall killed my father. Said that he challenged his alpha status. Said they both had to fight under the alpha laws and they battled to the death, and Randall won. My father was killed. But the funny thing was, there was no other shifter around to see this alpha battle.”

  “Wait, what?” Annie asked, confused. “There has to be witnesses to the alpha battle, otherwise . . . .”

  “Otherwise it’s just plain old murder.”

  Alpha battles were rare, and they mainly only happened in unstable shifter communities where the alpha leader was disliked by the rest of the pack. The rules were what kept the shifters in line, and they were supposed to be strict and enforced. If a shifter from the pack wanted to challenge their alpha to a battle to become the new alpha, the pack, or at least one other pack member, had to be there to watch and make sure everything went okay. Most of the time, there was a huge day made around this battle, where the whole pack came to watch the battle to see who was crowned as the new alpha. These battles always ended in one shifter dead, with the other the only alpha for that pack.

  The Elders had strict rules in place about the changing hands of the alphas. In regard to the alpha battle, there had to be some other pack member there as a witness. Otherwise, there could be shady things surrounding how that shifter became an alpha.

  “Your pack must’ve called the Elders then,” Annie concluded, bewildered.

  “Not quite,” he told her, sighing. “Randall, he was so well liked. People wanted to follow him. They welcomed him when he came into power, even though my father was well liked. I don’t know if the pack was scared of Randall, of what he would do if they stood up to him or questioned him, or what. But not one person stood up to him or questioned the battle he had with my father. My own mother didn’t question it.”

  “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” Annie didn’t know what else she was supposed to say. She felt horrible, sick to her stomach. She desperately wanted to reach out and grasp Lukas’s hand, squeezing it tight to let him know that she felt his pain. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. So she grasped her own hand and continued to listen to his story, knowing that it was far from over.

  “I questioned it, though. I had to. I couldn’t just let him pass. I couldn’t just get over my father’s death. So, one night after I had been drinking, I cornered him when he was alone. I got in his face, provoked him, and brought up all the things he hated about my dad. Yelled at him and told him that he was just a jealous fool that would never be as great as my father was, even if the pack gave him fake and halfhearted loyalty. And then, he confessed . . . .

  “He told me that he didn’t kill my father in an honest alpha battle. He told me that I was right, that he had cornered my father when he was alone. He told me that they got in an argument, and that argument was just one too many for Randall. He snapped. They fought, and Randall won. He murdered my father and got away with it. The whole pack, my whole family, just let him get away with the murder of my father. They never even questioned it.”

  “So . . . what happened?” Annie tentatively asked him as he trailed off, the anger in his voice dying unt
il it sounded like he was hollow inside. Annie hated hearing him like this. She hated that she even asked him to tell her this story because of the pain he was experiencing again.

  “So, I snapped. I attacked him just like he attacked my father, but for my father’s revenge. I wanted to kill him, but right before I did, something told me that I would regret it. Would I just do what Randall did to my father? That wasn’t justice. That was me turning into a murderer . . . into a monster. So, right before I killed him, I let go.

  “But I was still so angry, so furious, because I knew that the pack wouldn’t believe me. And even, if for some crazy reason, they all decided to take my side, it wouldn’t matter. As you know, alphas are alphas for life unless they step down or die. So, unless I wanted to fight Randall or someone else did, and unless we won that fight and didn’t die in battle, we would be living under the reign of a murderous shifter. A murderous alpha.

  “So, I decided to do something stupid, but in my rage it made all the sense in the world. I cut off his hand. I maimed him while he was in human form.”

  Annie somehow managed not to gasp, but her head was spinning. If a shifter was hurt in human form, they could heal themselves as they shifted without too much pain. However, if a shifter faced something like maiming, it was permanent. Yes, they could shift and be fine, with all parts of their wolf intact, but once they shifted back to human form, they would still be maimed or wounded. Just because they shifted didn’t mean that they could just grow back part of their body.

  Of course, maiming didn’t happen often because shifters mainly fought in their wolf form. If two shifters managed to get in a fight and stay in their human form, it would be a clear indication that emotions or situations were getting the best of them. If a shifter was ever killed in their human form, it was cold-blooded murder.

  Since Lukas maimed Randall in his human form, everyone would know what happened between them, and they would know that Lukas attacked Randall in human form and almost killed him.