Luna
If anything is a testament to the triplets’ regard for me, the next few minutes prove it.
“We’ve got to get Axel into the house to care for his wounds,” I say, rising to stand, knowing full well their resistance to having anything to do with Axel.
“Fuck that,” Ethan says, crossing his muscular arms over his chest as if to hold himself back from launching into Axel again.
Warrick clamps a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “If my baby girl wants to negotiate with the Alpha of the Jacksonville pack, let her have her way.”
“Yeah,” Callan says, giving Axel a disgusted look. “He’s obviously dick-whipped as fuck if he’d show up here without backup, just asking for us to stomp a mudhole in him.”
A slow grin forms on Ethan’s bloody lips. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he says. “But damn, Luna. You sure do have a point. I bet he’d give up his entire pack for one more taste of that sweet little pussy you got him hooked on.”
“No fucking way,” Warrick snarls. “I let him have her when I thought it was her choice. But she came back here, which means she chose us. No one touches my baby girl without going through me.”
I glance at Callan. With all the blood and dust and swamp smells, they must not have noticed that we mated earlier. “We’ll help her speak her piece with this mutt,” Callan says, spitting on Axel’s body. “But Luna’s pussy is ours.”
I like being called their queen and being told I’m theirs. My wolf preens with joy at his words, even though I know we have a hard conversation ahead. I didn’t know Warrick thought if I mated with him that meant I’d be mated to him forever, and I need to correct that misunderstanding. But first, I need to make sure Axel lives.
Callan and Ethan haul him up and carry him into the house, his feet dragging on the ground and his head lolling. I can’t tell if he’s lost consciousness entirely. They lay him on the couch, and I kneel beside him.
“Get me something to wash away the blood,” I say.
Callan retreats to get what I asked for while Ethan and Warrick stand like two giant Seminoles.
When Callan returns with a plastic basin full of water, I reach for the washrag floating inside. After squeezing it out, I gently swipe the blood from Axel’s bruised face.
One eye is swollen shut, ringed by two angry gashes, and his lip looks like it’s been stung by hornets. I peel up his crimson-stained t-shirt to get at his torso, but Callan stops me and shows me the sharp-edged tool in his hand.
“Scissors,” he says, using his thumb and finger to snip at the air. “Cut the damn thing off.” He demonstrates this by slicing through the bottom of the shirt. After placing the scissors in my hand, he backs away to stand with his brothers.
Tentatively, I snip at the stained cotton until I get the hang of it. Then, I slice through the whole thing. I place the scissors on the floor and gently smooth away all the fabric from my former mate’s discolored chest. Large purple bruises mar his chest and abdomen and ribs, while scrapes and abrasions cover his neck and collarbones. But once all the blood has been cleared away, I can see Axel beneath all the discoloration and swelling.
My heart wars with itself-I care about Axel despite myself, but when I think of our True Mate bond severing, I still hate him, too. In his condition, Axel’s busted up face and body reflect what I feel inside.
His good eye opens, and he regards me somberly. “Luna,” he manages to say with effort.
“Stop,” I say, putting my palm in front of his face. “Let me talk. I don’t want none of this fighting between you and the triplets. I get that you hate
each other, but you brought this on yourself, Axel. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t gone and destroyed our bond. I wouldn’t even be with the triplets at all, let alone almost killed, and them almost killing you, and you losing the pack land. I’d still be sad about Mama, but none of the rest would’ve happened at all. I’d still be yours and yours alone, but you chose a different path.” I roll my lips between my teeth to keep from letting out a little hiccup of tears.
“And I’ll regret my actions every day of my life,” Axel rasps. “But if I have to suffer, even if I have to die to prove how much you mean to me, I’ll do it. Just give me a chance to.”
The room grows as quiet as a moonless night, and Axel’s gaze rises to Warrick. My breath catches in the back of my throat.
“Everything I did, I did it for the good of the pack,” Axel continues. “But I’d give up the pack and let Warrick take over just to get you back.”
Warrick lets out a grunt from his sentinel stance by the door.
Axel lifts his bruised hand and brushes my hair back from my face. Then, he fingers the gauze bandage at my neck, and a shattered look replaces the tenderness. “If you didn’t make it…”
His voice trails off, and he brushes a hand down my arm. I close my eyes, savoring the touch while gathering my thoughts. Finally, I open my eyes.
“Maybe it all had to go down this way,” I say.
Axel’s scraped-up forehead bunches in a frown. “What do you mean?” “How else would I have met these men?” I ask. “My heart belongs to them, Axel. Even though my wolf and my body feel good with you, my heart is still busted up where you broke it.”
Axel’s scowl deepens, but he stays quiet.
I wipe away some blood that’s seeped from one of the gashes on his face. “Maybe if you can understand how much these men mean to me, and that they’re not going anywhere… If you can accept that they’re part of my life and they’re my mates now, then I can start to forgive you for severing our True Mate’s bond.”
A dark storm forms on his face, and he squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, his anguish is clear in his gaze. “That’s not how it works, Luna. It’s against the laws of nature. A wolf has one mate. She is his everything, as he is hers.”
I swallow hard. “In this house, we break the law.”
This time the silence that fills the air is brittle and hard, like glass with spidery little cracks.
Axel closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, with his lips pressed tightly together. “What do you want?” he finally says, opening his eyes.
I take a long, deep breath before answering. “I want to join the pack,” I say. “But not as your mate. I want to live in safety on pack land, not to be scared I’ll be attacked in the woods. I want my own house on Golden Glade Street, like the other pack members. The triplets can come and go from my house as they please and stay there as much as I want them to. And they get to hunt on Creebay preserve without having to skulk around like criminals.” Axel’s jaw juts out in the way it does before he explodes. A look of outrage replaces the anguish in his eyes. “I can’t do that,” he says, the
words sounding forced.
“Then I can’t forgive you, and I’ll continue to live here,” I say, raising my chin.
Axel drags a hand over his face, wincing at the pain he’s no doubt causing by touching his battered skin. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know full well what I’m asking,” I snap. “I’m asking you to give me something I want, rather than assuming you know what’s best for me.
Yes, I liked all the mating things we did, but you can’t control me by making me feel good. That’s not everything a girl wants, Axel.”
“Fuck, Luna,” Axel says, squeezing his head. Slowly, as if he’s aged fifty years, he hauls his body upright. “That’s not why…”
“Then think about it like this,” I say, as confidence grows at my certainty that I’ve found just the way to convince him. “A lone wolf attacked me. Remember when you said they could be dangerous? Well, there could be more out there. It could happen again. And maybe next time, Warrick won’t be around to save me.”
Axel pulls his hair and lets out a low, rumbling groan.
“You said you’d do anything for me,” I remind him. “So, prove it. Prove that you mean what you say, and you’re not just trying to get me back the way that suits you. Then I’ll think about it-after you prove you want me to be happy.”
Axel flashes the triplets a glare that would incinerate most werewolves. But not my men. My men are stronger and fiercer and scarier than any wolf in the world, I just know it.
“Come on, Axel,” I say. “These men make me happy. How can I trust you not to hurt me again if you won’t let me be happy?”
At last, Axel nods, his troubled gaze searching mine. “I’m happy to have you in the pack, where I can keep you safe. You know that, Luna. And I do want you to be happy.”
I raise my brows. “And my own house?”
“There’s one down the block from me,” he says, glowering like it offends him to think I’ll have something of my own, separate from him.
“Adolpha and her family need a bigger house.”
“I remember her,” I say, brightening. “She was nice.”
“I’m sure she’d love to have you take over the place. She fixed it up real nice.” Axel’s face is hard, like stone.
“I can’t wait to see it,” I say, clapping my hands together. “My very own house, that I didn’t have to build myself. I hope it has a tin roof like the one me and Mama had. I like the sound of the rain at night.
Axel’s bruised jaw clenches. “When someone challenges the Alpha and loses, he’s forced to leave the pack.”
“And he did,” I say. “But now he’s coming back. I don’t care if it’s the werewolf law. We’re outlaws. Ethan says that means we can do stuff other people think is bad, and we don’t care.”
“This will make you accept me as your mate again?” Axel asks, his miserable gaze on mine.
“It’s a start,” I say. “You can keep proving yourself, and one day, when I’m done forgiving you for hurting me and my wolf so bad, we can talk about whether you can be my mate again.”
Axel looks like he might explode. Instead, like the Alpha he is, he stands up, and even though he’s beaten and battered and has to limp across the room, he somehow still looks imposing as he stops in front of the triplets. The glare he gives them makes my wolf cower down inside me,
begging for mercy even though he’s not angry at us. “You are granted hunting rights to our share of Creebay Preserve,” he says. “Don’t fuck it up, and if you hurt Luna, I will disembowel all three of you and hang you by a noose made of your own intestines.”
With that, he wheels around toward the door. My wolf cries for him to come back, and his wolf must feel it, because he glances over his shoulder with one long, searching gaze. My wolf blazes to life, eager to answer his every command. But he turns without a word and walks out the door.