Chapter 25
Annie thanked every God and supernatural being out there for her best friend, Thea. They sat in the backyard, Annie spilling everything that her father had told her before he left about half an hour ago. Kato was in the living room with Lukas, so Annie felt it was safe to let Thea in on all the details.
She was worried beyond belief. Both Kato and Lukas had tried desperately to calm her down when Hann left, but her worries just kept on getting the best of her. She knew who she needed, she needed her best friend to give her advice and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
They were sitting at their backyard picnic table, the moon and stars giving them their only light. Thea sat across from her, the moonlight lighting up her pale blonde hair that was tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head.
Annie loved nights like this, when it was dark and a little chilly. There was a light breeze that blew her hair around slightly as they talked, but the sweater she was wearing made her warm against the chilly wind. If Annie was a full-blooded shifter, she wouldn’t feel this cold. She would be so warm-blooded that light chills like this wouldn’t even affect her. Annie embraced her human ability to feel this cold, even if it did make her a bigger outcast in her pack. When winter came around, she was the only one in winter clothes, layered up to keep from the cold.
As Annie and Thea sat there, Annie, after much consideration and after Thea comforted her about her father, decided that she was going to spill the beans about Lukas. Because if she could trust anyone in the world, it would be Thea.
“Okay, so what I’m about to tell you has to stay between us,” Annie told her, wrapping her sweater around her and shivering a bit.
“Girl, you know that you don’t even have to tell me that,” Thea responded as she warmed her hands on her hot chocolate mug. “You know that everything you tell me goes to the grave, no matter what. I got you, girly.”
“Lukas and I had sex.” Annie thought it would be better to just come out with it and not beat around the bush. She still didn’t know how she was processing the whole thing, and she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Lukas since it all happened. With the news about Kaiser and the nerve-wracking emotions she’d been having about her father, she was able to push her emotions and feelings to the side. But now that she was alone with Thea, and had gotten all of her worries about her father off of her chest, her mind went back to Lukas. And she needed to tell someone.
“Oh, my God, give me details,” Thea said, her blue eyes bright with excitement. With a huge smile on her face, she leaned forward toward the table with enthusiasm.
“Thea,” Annie began, wanting to go into all the sexy details with her best friend but knowing that she shouldn’t. “He’s a rogue. What I just did . . . this could end up being the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You haven’t told anyone else, have you?” Thea asked, her face now becoming one of worry and not happiness.
“No, you’re the only person I’ve told. You’re the only person I’m ever going to tell.”
“Okay, good. You shouldn’t tell anyone else. Keep this between you and Lukas, no matter what.”
“We’re going to, but that’s not the problem,” Annie sighed, rubbing her tired face with her hands. She felt like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She knew she needed to get her strength back up to par so that she would be prepared for when Kaiser came rolling into town. “The problem is that I-I think I really like him. Like, this is more than just a sexual frustration that I have for him. This is something . . . well, this is something I’ve never felt before. And I don’t know if I can explain it accurately.”
“You like him?” Thea almost whispered back to her, her eyes wide. “That’s . . . well, that’s scary.”
“I don’t want him to leave,” Annie told her, looking into her light-blue eyes and finding comfort in them. “He was trying to leave today, and I stopped him. We talked about everything. I found out what he did to become a rogue, and it was nothing like I thought. He’s not bad or evil or disgusting. He’s just a regular old shifter that has problems like the rest of us, but because his enemy was in charge of things, he got the blunt end of the sword. And he became a rogue when he really shouldn’t have. But I know he’ll have to leave soon, more than likely once Kaiser leaves. And I think that’s going to kill me.”
“Does Lukas know that you feel this way for him?” Thea asked, making a pang of anxiety go through Annie’s heart.
“I think so,” she replied, honestly not knowing if Lukas did or didn’t know. “I tried to tell him without coming out and saying it completely, so I’m not sure if he really understood what I was saying or not . . . .”
“Annie,” Thea laughed, shaking her head. “You need to tell him, with no hidden messages, how you really feel. I think you’ll be a little surprised with his response, for the better.”
“What if he leaves?” Annie whispered after a moment, tears forming in her eyes. She tried to shake them away. She hated when she cried.
“Then he leaves,” Thea said softly, grabbing Annie’s hands across the table and squeezing it slightly in comfort. “And I will help you move on. And you, my strong, beautiful friend, you’ll survive. Maybe not at first, but you will. Trust me.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Thea.”
“You’d have such a boring life, let’s be honest,” Thea laughed, standing up from the table to walk inside. “Come on, let’s make sure that Kato hasn’t killed Lukas yet.”
Annie and Thea walked inside to find Lukas and Kato at the kitchen island, sitting down and talking like normal, regular adults. It was almost a shock to see, considering Kato didn’t even like being in the same room as Lukas when he first showed up in town. Annie smiled at them as they walked over to the two guys, a feeling of hope blossoming in her chest. Maybe if Kato could come around and realize that Lukas wasn’t an evil being . . . maybe there was hope somewhere for her and Lukas. She could only hope there was, of course.
“Look at you two, talking like you both don’t hate each other,” Annie teased as she took a seat by Lukas, making sure to keep her distance, so as not to tip Kato off about anything.
“Yeah, the rogue’s not that bad once you get past his annoying exterior,” Kato joked, shooting Lukas a glance that Annie couldn’t decipher. Lukas just smirked back at him before sipping the hot chocolate that Thea had forced on everyone when she got home earlier.
“Kato, I heard you were a dick at work today,” Thea said to Kato, a smirk on her face as she stared at him from across the kitchen island.
“Tell your boyfriend to mind his own business, and then maybe I won’t be a dick to him,” Kato responded, giving her a look, which Thea laughed at.
“I’ll be sure to tell my fiancé,” she replied, making Kato roll his eyes.
Thea’s fiancé was a doctor at the same hospital that Kato worked at, and Thea had told Annie many times that she didn’t think the two really got along. Kato would never admit that he hated the guy, but he would make little comments here and there about how he thought that Thea was rushing into the marriage. He even once said that the guy wasn’t good enough for her, which Thea laughed at, considering he was a doctor that saved lives.
Kato had always been incredibly protective of Thea, just like Annie was. They had all grown up together and just gotten closer and closer over the years. Both Kato and Annie felt like they had to protect Thea from all the evil of the world because she was a human, though they both knew that their tiny friend could protect herself better than they could when she needed to. They just couldn’t help being protective.
Annie sometimes felt bad that they never told Kato that Thea knew about shifters, but never enough to actually let him in on the loop. The less people that knew about the whole thing, the safer Thea was.
The four fell into a comfortable conversation, surprising both Annie and Lukas a little bit. Here she was, a halfie, having a fun conversation with the man she was slowly falling in love wit
h–who just happened to be a rogue shifter, and her best friend–who just happened to be a human. Kato was the only normal one in the room.
When there came a pounding at the front door, making everyone pause in confusion, Annie immediately felt sick to her stomach. Was this her father or someone from the pack coming to warn them about Kaiser? Was he here?
Both she and Kato went to the front door, almost running, out of fear and anticipation about what would be on the other side. Finally, once she got there, she took a deep breath and opened up the door.
She never, in a million years, thought that she would see them on the other side of the door. Her breath caught in her throat, and she even heard Kato take a quick intake of breath when he saw them from behind her. What the hell were they doing here? What was going on?
“Where is the human, Miss Bellova?” the first one questioned, its eerie voice seeming to crawl into Annie’s head and settle there.
The Elders were here.
They were dressed like they normally did, like they just stepped off a time machine that came from the medieval times. They had black capes that covered them from head to toe, concealing their old skin, and a black hood that always seemed to be up. They didn’t like to show their faces. As Annie looked at them, blood boiling in her veins, goosebumps on her arms from fear, she realized that they looked like grim reapers. How fitting.
The one that had spoken up, who was towards the front of the group of five, had his hood pulled slightly back so that Annie could see his pale, white skin and his white eyes that had no color in them. She shivered before she could stop herself.
And then, almost as if she was having trouble keeping up with what they were saying, the words they spoke finally sunk into her brain.
They were looking for Thea.
Chapter 26
Annie couldn’t move. She didn’t know what to do other than stare at the Elders as they stared back at her. She could feel Kato stiffen behind her, probably in confusion and surprise.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annie told them, lifting up her head in defiance. She would not let them have Thea. Over her dead body.
“Please don’t insult us with your attempt to stop us, Miss Bellova,” the lead Elder said to her, almost reveling in her disobeying. “We are here for the human. She knows too much, and that we can’t have.”
“She doesn’t know anything,” Annie whispered, taking a step forward, trying to block them out of her home.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” the Elder responded, almost seeming to smile at her. “She knows enough. And that . . . that we can’t have. You can either lead us to her, or we’ll find her ourselves. It’s up to you.”
Annie stepped back from the power radiating off the Elders. It almost hit her like a brick, in waves, and she felt herself stumble into solid Kato. Her eyes, swimming with tears, found Kato’s, who was looking at them with surprise and fear in his eyes. The Elders weren’t a group that shifters fought against. It was unheard of. However, all Annie wanted to do was slam the door in their faces and take Thea far from here.
In what seemed like slow motion, Annie made her decision. She immediately turned around and ran into the kitchen, trying to find Thea and get her the hell out of Maine. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Her hands were shaking from fear, and she was on the verge of tears as her worst nightmare was coming true. How could she do this to Thea? How could she let her best friend, the one person in the world that she trusted more than anyone else, face this situation?
Annie knew who she had to blame. She only had one person to blame.
Herself.
And knowing that killed her inside.
As she ran into the kitchen, she slid on the tile in a quick stop. Kato ran into her back, and she quickly realized that he must’ve been right on her heels as she ran away from the Elders. But as they looked at what was unfolding in the kitchen, she realized that they were too late.
Lukas stood with Thea behind him against a counter, with two Elders circling and walking towards the two. They must’ve come in from the back door. Annie met Thea’s eyes, and her heart broke as she saw those light-blue eyes watery and full of fear. This was her fault. This was all Annie’s fault. How could she be so stupid?
“Please, you don’t understand,” Annie managed to croak out, standing in the middle of the kitchen and trying to get the attention of the Elders. The group at the front door had slowly walked into her house, almost taking their time because they knew that they would win this little war.
“I haven’t been in this house for quite a while,” the Elder that originally spoke at the front door almost murmured as he passed by both Kato and Annie, who stood together in shock and fear. “You were just a child, then.”
Annie looked up into the white eyes of the Elder, who now stood quite close to her, looking down as if she was an abomination. The veins in his face stood out like scars against his pale skin, and Annie wondered how old this shifter really was. He looked like he could be centuries old.
What he was saying . . . Annie almost couldn’t process it. It seemed like she was walking through a watery haze, trying to break free so that she could breathe, but being unable to. As she looked into the Elder’s eyes, she realized that this must’ve been one of the Elders that had a hand in her mother’s disappearance. She was surprised by the hate she found in her heart.
This Elder had taken away her mother when Annie was just a baby. Yes, her mother left of her own free will, but that never would’ve happened if the Elders hadn’t threatened her and her family. She wouldn’t let him take away Thea. Over her dead body.
“Let me just make a few things clear,” Annie called out, a calm overtaking her body as she realized just what she would sacrifice for Thea. She knew what she had to do–and this Elder making his little comments and threats made it all the easier for Annie to control that hate in her heart that was building with every second. Annie walked to the middle of the kitchen, circling slowly as she talked, making sure that all the Elders saw her. “You are not taking Thea away.”
“This is a human that knows about shifters,” the main Elder, the one who knew Annie said, walking towards her, his head tilted to the side. Annie swore he had an amused look on his face. “She is a threat to our whole society. Surely, you won’t be as selfish as your father was all those years ago. Surely, you have learned where you stand.”
“You have no right to take her,” Annie swore, sweat dripping down her back from fear.
“We’re merely going to help her forget about her time spent with shifters,” the Elder shrugged, acting as if he was giving Thea a vacation. “No harm, no foul.”
“Bullshit,” Annie cursed at him, trying to get closer to where Lukas and Thea were. “I know what you all do. We all know what you guys do, and it’s not right. I won’t let you take my best friend.”
“How adorable,” the Elder seemed to roll his eyes, making Annie’s blood boil with rage now.
“You can’t do this,” Annie began to plead, standing her ground still. “You have no right, and Thea would never be of harm to anyone.”
“Wait,” the Elder held up a finger, stopping Annie from continuing to plead for Thea’s life. The Elder stood still, closing his eyes and focusing on something, but Annie couldn’t tell what. She stared at him, unable to do anything but watch as the old man concentrated on something. “No one told me that we have a rogue in the building.”
Annie felt like she was going to throw up when the Elder opened his eyes and smiled at Lukas. She turned slightly to look at Lukas, her eyes wide. He stared back at her, but she couldn’t see an ounce of fear or worry in there. He was still standing in front of Thea, protecting her, and Annie felt like her heart was going to break.
This couldn’t be happening. The two people that meant so much to her in her life were now in the Elders’ field of vision, and in more than enough danger, and it was all because of her. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that she had to
try. She couldn’t just let the Elders kill Lukas. And she couldn’t just let them take Thea away.
Chapter 27
Annie decided to act fast.
“This is Lukas, you must’ve heard of him,” she managed to tell the Elder. She was thankful her voice wasn’t wavering, even though she felt like she would burst into tears any moment. “He is the rogue that came to our town to warn my father about Kaiser and his plans.”
“Ah, Lukas,” the Elder murmured as he walked forward, arms outstretched as if to take Lukas into his arms and hug him. “I knew you looked familiar, my boy. It hasn’t been that long, has it? I’m so terribly sorry I didn’t recognize you when I first walked in. I blame old age.”
Annie had never heard an Elder laugh before, and she never wanted to again. It was eerie, as if it was in a time misplaced, and the universe was letting everyone know that it was unnatural. The Elder’s laugh crawled under her skin until she wanted to rub and scratch at her arms to get it out of her.
“My father told him that he could stay within the pack’s territory until Kaiser showed up,” Annie explained, trying to get herself to calm down but thankful that, for the moment, the attention was taken off of Thea. She hated that it was now on Lukas, though. Maybe if she could manage to switch the conversation to Kaiser, she could manage to persuade them that there were worse things at hand. “Lukas wanted to stay and fight Kaiser for all the wrongs that he has committed, and my father respected that.”
“Oh, Lukas,” the Elder murmured, smiling again. “Always trying to do the ‘right thing,’ aren’t you? So noble, so courageous. So just like your father, may his eternal soul rest in peace.”
“Don’t you dare bring my father into this,” Lukas growled in his direction, making all the other Elders that were now behind the main Elder bristle from his threat.
“He was a great alpha, Lukas, I’m just showing him respect,” the Elder shrugged, but the glimmer in his eye told Annie that he was goading Lukas, and he knew it.
Moonlight Wolves Box Set Page 10