Lucy’s POV
“You mean to tell me that there are rogues roaming about in my pack?” the Luna of Moonstruck screamed, rising from her seat in her study. Her red flowing dress caught the light from outside, which almost made her look like she was burning like a phoenix from the myths.
“Affirmative,” said Seth, face serious. “We know not how they got in, but I would suggest that precautionary measures be put in place immediately to prevent further losses. We already lost a guard, the last thing we need is more innocent bloodshed.”
“I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed, her eyes almost bulging out of her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, as though she had been crying before we even came to see her in her study.
Scott was with us now, and for some reason, he had been too silent, even more than usual. At every point that I tried to speak to him, he would merely respond with a mumble and just dismiss my presence. It hurt, but I didn’t want to take it too seriously. I still couldn’t get what I had seen him doing with Anabella out of my mind, and it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. We were all adults who were free to do whatever we wanted, but in this case, I just couldn’t get over it, no matter how much I tried to blot it out of my mind.
I hadn’t seen Anabella since then, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure that I would have known what tomsay or even act around her. She had gotten what she wanted, and I was in no place to question that.
I turned my attention back to the Luna before us, who looked on the verge of a breakdown. I couldn’t imagine how she must have felt, knowing now that her people were in danger.
“What can we do? If they got in once, they can get in again. We don’t even know how they got in in the first place,” she said, shaking her head in disdain. “Good goddess, how could this even have happened in the first place?”
“There is always a way out of these things, aunt. We just have to be judicious,” said Seth, standing before us. The line of his jaw had been hardened, and the green of his eyes looked colder than usual. I didn’t know exactly what he had seen or felt the day before, but he had been a little different. He and Scott had adopted a similar behaviour in the last couple of hours, and it upset me greatly.
Beside me, Shaun sat quietly as well, but behind his eyes, I could see all the thoughts going through his mind even though he hadn’t said a word. In need of a little comfort, I took his hand underneath the table, and squeezed it gently. I knew that he was thinking about Moongrowl and how they were doing, but the news we had been getting from there didn’t point to any problems.
The pack was safe.
“Then how do we proceed from here?” asked the Luna, looking between us earnestly. “What can we do in order to stop things from getting worse? Do you know when last we had a rogue attack? Over six decades! Sixty years have passed, and even the rogue we had to deal with wasn’t even this sort of intelligent beast that we have on our hands.”
“But that isn’t all. These rogue aren’t the normal ones we are used to. They’re not working alone, just like that Scout said,” Shaun finally said with a sigh.
The Luna paused in her rant. “What? How are you sure of this?”
Shaun turned to me, giving me the go ahead with his gaze. I initially wanted to shrink away, since the last time I had a conversation with the Luna, it hadn’t gone so well, but I swallowed up my anxiety. These were serious matters, and I had to be bold.
I slowly looked up at her. “I saw the shadows that the Scout had been talking about. The one I saw his behind the trees.”
“Did you see what they looked like?”
I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. They went away before I could see more. The way they moved was . . . unnatural. I’m not even sure if they were werewolves like us or something else.”
The Luna dripped into her seat, clasping her temples as though she was trying to keep her head from bursting apart. “Seth, you’re in charge of the guards and warriors. I need scouts to search every perimeter of this pack. I need guards at every entry and exit of this palace and I need at least two warriors stationed as support for the scouts. Can you do that?”
“I can,” said Seth, “but we’ll have to be sure that the coast is clear first. Just sending in scouts could put them at more risk than planned, and we don’t want a repeat of what happened the last time.”
“I understand. I trust you to get things done, Seth,” said the Luna.
“Lucy and I will go and visit the scout again. She could have more information about what happened back there. We can interrogate her fully now that she’s healed up.” He turned to Scott as though he wanted to tell him something, but one look at his brother’s stoic face was enough to make him rethink that decision.
We left the study soon after, and made our way to where we had been told the scout lived. Her room was in the warriors’ quarters of the palace.
She welcomed us warmly into her room, and we entered. We asked her a few more questions, to which she responded to the best of her ability. I felt a little bad for her whenever I looked that the scars on her body, as well as the parts of her that couldn’t have been healed. Sje had sacrificed so much for her pack. No compensation could ever return the things she had lost, but it was good to see that se was being well taken care of. I ajd heard too many stories about ruthless packs that didn’t care if their warriors were dead or alive as long as they did what they were told.
After the conversation with her, we went back to our room. Her words hadn’t given us any exactly new information, but we were able to conclude that indeed the shadows we had both seen weren’t just mere hallucinations.
The rogues truly weren’t acting alone.