Lisa Kessler - Moonlight

“He was telling me what a great Alpha I was last night, and I let him know that until Malcolm got shot I was planning on leaving with you. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes, breathing him into my lungs. I felt his fingers lightly trace over the bruises from the handcuffs.

“They’re never going to leave us alone, Lana. Nero will be back.”

I didn’t want to think about Nero or the blood and body parts we cleaned up last night. I wanted to pretend we were a normal couple, just for a little while. I opened my eyes and saw Malcolm pale and motionless on the pyre. I couldn’t hide from this though.

The horses nickered as I moved around to sit next to Adam. “I wish I had the right answer, Adam. I feel like I’m just treading water, trying not to sink into panic. So many questions are rattling around in my head. Your Dad can’t be right about me being pregnant. You haven’t bitten me. I don’t even know if that would work since I’m already a different kind of…animal. And now that he’s gone, you can’t leave with me. You have to stay here and lead the Pack. They need you.”

He took my hand and looked over at me. “But I can’t do this without you.”

My eyes were already raw from crying, but they brimmed with tears again anyway. “Your Pack will never be safe if I’m here.”

His green eyes narrowed. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again, Lana.”

“Then you’ll spend the rest of your life fighting them.”

“No.” He leaned over and kissed me so soft and slow that my heart ached. I opened my eyes again, and his gaze held mine, demanding my attention. “I will spend the rest of my life loving you.”

A tear spilled down my cheek. “Your father would be alive right now if it wasn’t for me.”

He cupped my check, brushing away my tear with the pad of his thumb. “If it wasn’t for you, I never would have learned to love anyone but myself.”

“I know Malcolm said I was part of the Pack, but they didn’t get a say in that. Do you think they could ever truly accept me?”

“Aren already has. The rest of them will too. It may take some of them longer than others.”

“They’ll resent me after a few more visits from Nero.”

He shook his head. “We’ll be ready for them in the future. They won’t catch us off-guard again. Plus, we already know what Sasha and Sebastian look like so we’ll watch for them. Don’t underestimate the Pack, Lana. We can protect ourselves.”

“Believe me, I saw the carnage last night.” I stared at my hands. “I was going to leave last night. While you were running with the wolves. I already had a plane ticket to leave for Chicago.”

He was up off the stool so fast that I flinched. “Why? I told you I’d go with you.”

“I didn’t want you to give up your family for me. It wasn’t right, Adam. You’d never be happy without them.”

“So you weren’t even going to give me a choice? You were just going to walk away?”

His words stung. I got up and crossed my arms. “I loved you enough to walk away so you could keep your family. You have the one thing I’ve always wanted. How can I take that from you?”

He shook his head and raked his fingers through his dark hair as he walked over to pat Bruce. “Let me get this straight. I was ready to give up my entire life for you, and you were planning to dump me the entire time.” He looked over his shoulder at me with a disgusted look on his face. “So did you come down here to tell me goodbye, or are you just going to surprise me when you leave?”

“It’s not like that. I didn’t want to hurt you or your family.”

He spun on me. “What part of I love you did you miss? When I told you that, I meant it. You didn’t think it would hurt when I found out you were gone? You didn’t think it would rip my heart out to find you left me while I was a wolf and vanished without a trace? I thought we were a team. I trusted you.” He looked up toward the sky and shook his head. “I should have listened to them.” His eyes met mine and he whispered, “They told me a jaguar could never love me.”

I couldn’t listen to another word. I turned and ran from the barn, his final stab following me out. “After we made love in the barn,” he called after me, “you said you’d love me forever. What an asshole I was to believe you.”

…

Aren leaned against the doorframe while I jammed the few personal belongings I still had into a bag. For a split second I thought it was Adam, but the crutch and wrapped up ankle gave him away. He raised a brow as I zoomed past him in search of my tennis shoes.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I’d spent the better part of the last half hour bottling up my feelings and trying to morph them into self-righteous anger. Adam had twisted everything around. I did love him. I loved him enough to leave him. I was being noble, not hurtful. The bastard.

“I’m leaving.”

“Now?” He straightened up on his crutch. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere but here.” I pulled the sides of the bag together and massaged the zipper until it finally slid over the opening.

“What happened?”

I sighed, trying to keep my rage simmering so I couldn’t fall apart. “I know that he told you we were planning on leaving this morning so we could keep Nero away from the Pack, but—”

“He told me he was leaving because the Pack would never accept his mate.”

“Well, I didn’t want him to do that for me.”

“Did you tell him that?”

I sighed. “I thought so. I don’t know.” Tears were threatening again. I took a deep breath and tossed the bag over my shoulder. “My laptop was in Adam’s Jeep when Sasha shot out the tires. Was it still in there when Luke and Logan went over to tow it back?”

He nodded. “Yeah, they left all your stuff beside the sofa last night.”

“Thank you.” I moved past him, noting again the subtle difference between his scent and Adam’s. Adam always smelled musky, like a forest after rain, a wildness to it. Aren’s was similar, but where Adam oozed charm, Aren didn’t. His scent was harder to describe. His scent reminded me of autumn, spicy and intimate, with the aura of winter. Almost as if he had a wall constructed around himself. I shook off the thoughts, picked up my laptop, and went to call a cab.

“So now you’re leaving him, but you’re mad at him for being upset that you’re leaving?”

I sighed and looked up at Aren with the phone in my hand. “I don’t want to go. Not anymore.”

“Then why are you packing?” His brow furrowed.

“Because.” A sob strangled my voice. I cleared my throat and squeaked out, “Because I told Adam I was planning to leave last night so he could stay with all of you and Nero would leave the Pack alone. And now he thinks…” I wiped a tear away. “Now I need to go.”

Aren glanced toward the barn and back at me. “So my new Alpha is an asshole?”

I laughed through my tears. “He’s not an asshole. But he’s not happy with me.”

Aren hobbled over and sat next to me. “Here’s a secret for you, little kitty, and I’ll deny it if you ever repeat a word.”

I wiped my nose and nodded.

“My brother, Adam, is a total horse’s ass when he doesn’t get eight hours of sleep. I’m not saying whether or not you deserved whatever it was he just dished out down there, but we just lost our father and our Alpha. He just got an entire Pack to lead dumped on his shoulders, and on top of all of that, he’s going to be a father himself.” He gave me a little nudge with his elbow. “All that packaged with no sleep, and I bet Adam can’t even stand himself, let alone any of us.”