Howl (Lost Moon: Unravelling Monsters Universe #2)

Chapter 12

12

WEST

“ H e set a bear trap? What a fucking coward.”

That old alpha who was booted from his pack in Las Vegas — the one Rebecca caught sniffing around this way days ago — is a coward, and I grunt in agreement with Sam’s statement. I’d been surveying parts of our territory that are currently out of bounds for the rest of the pack when I’d caught his fresh scent, recognising it from last year’s gala event in New York. Victor. Last year he’d been drunk by the end of the night, embarrassing himself, and his pack second had been visibly uncomfortable with the way his alpha was acting. No wonder they got rid of him.

Today his scent trail began abruptly, as if he’d appeared out of thin air, and had ended with me stepping in the metal jaws of a well-hidden trap, my yelp loud enough to alert the nearest pack members.

I readjust Bronte in my arms again as Sam and I walk naked through the forest, flanked by the shifted wolves of our pack, the enforcers split equally between the lead and the rear. It’s a slow journey on two feet, but my mate is unconscious, and not even Sam could carry both of our weight at once. He’d been panting heavily when he arrived with Bronte on his back — a sight I’d never expected to see — and I get the impression that she’d pushed him hard.

I’d realised too late that she was using up all her energy in healing me. She’s as stubborn as I am, and had refused to stop until she was already slurring her words. I get the feeling that she’d drain herself dry to save me, and I don’t like it. I don’t deserve it. It should be — it needs to be — the other way around. Always.

Sam was supposed to protect her, not bring her into potential danger, and I’ll be talking to him about that later when we’re away from the curious ears of the rest of the pack. I’m not about to undermine the decisions of my second and my mate in front of everyone, but I am curious as to what they have to say for themselves.

Needing to have conversations with people brings another person to mind. “I have to talk to Rebecca,” I say, and Sam swears softly under his breath, while a few of the wolves snarl. She’s one of the adults that remained unshifted to care for the children today, and as far as I can tell, she’s got nothing to do with this incident — not intentionally, at least.

“She probably opened her big mouth,” Sam says, echoing my thoughts. Jacob — one of the youngest enforcers at nineteen — snorts in the wolf equivalent of a nervous laugh, and I shake my head.

“I didn’t mean like that ,” Sam says, unimpressed, though the look he gives me says that he’s certain Rebecca did take that alpha to bed. “You all know she likes to talk.”

“Loose lips sink ships,” I mutter. “People need to remember that pack information stays pack information. Just because someone is a wolf doesn’t mean they can be trusted.”

There’s another nervous snort from someone behind me. I don’t turn around. I won’t bother trying to find out who it is. I’m not giving anyone the satisfaction of that.

“My mate can be trusted,” I say, cold fury running through my veins. “Anyone who has an issue with her is welcome to leave the pack.”

We walk on in silence. My leg aches — I suspect the bone isn’t fully healed yet — and all the while I think about this rogue alpha.

I’m going to hunt him down, and I’m going to kill him.

I shower quickly, washing the blood from my body, still feeling the phantom pain of the trap caught around my foot. I still don’t understand how the fuck a rogue alpha got onto this land when there’s only one road in and out, unless there really is a traitor within the pack.

I would have sensed it.

But I’ve been more distracted than I realised.

Sam had said as much the other day — that I was choosing Bronte over them. I don’t know how other alphas balance this. Then again, no other alpha has ever had to balance the needs of their werewolf mate with that of their pack. And Bronte’s fucking magical stone is still out there somewhere in the hands of pixies doing god knows what.

I step into the hall, towel slung around my hips, and find Sam exactly where I left him, standing guard at the door to my bedroom, wearing a borrowed pair of my pants. “Thanks for watching her,” I tell him.

“Of course.”

“And don’t ever fucking bring her into danger again. When I say keep her safe, I mean keep her safe. Don’t make me fucking bark it.”

Sam nods. “I knew you’d be pissed.”

“Then why?—”

“Ask your mate. Ask her what she did, because I can’t fucking explain it. You haven’t even bitten her yet,” he adds with a frown, folding his arms over his bare chest. I don’t know what claiming her has to do with anything today, but he speaks again before I can ask. “She told me she can see the future. That true?”

“Yeah.” I’m surprised she told him.

“She scares me, if I’m being honest.”

“Bronte?”

“Yes, Bronte . She’s powerful.” He shudders. “I’m not joking, Weston. We’ve met our fair share of witches over the years, but nothing like her, and she acts like it’s all so normal.”

“It’s because it is normal to her. She’s got a skewed sense of her own abilities.” I look him up and down. He seems fine. “Go get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. I’m on the morning guard. I’ll see you then.”

I lock the door behind Sam, watching him walk off into the distance. With the lights out inside the cabin, it’s easy enough to see the wolves — still in their shifted forms — guarding the cabin, and further wolves in the distance. I’m lucky to have such a good pack. I didn’t even need to ask them; they organised the night shifts themselves, insisting that I rest with my mate.

Seeing me injured scared them. Getting injured had me thinking about the future of the pack. I’ve long wondered when the next alpha will be born, and to whom. Every time there’s a birth I brace myself for the inevitable news that the new pup smells like an alpha, and yet it never comes. I don’t want that moment to come. I’m never going to give up this pack. I’m not going to be like the alpha that left a fucking trap for me to step into — washed up, wandering alone, packless.

When the pack has the next alpha — when they come of age — they’re going to have to kill me if they want me gone. I’m not leaving any other way.

What would happen to Bronte?

“Not gonna think about it,” I mutter to myself, pulling together a makeshift dinner. Pack members stocked the kitchen in advance of our arrival, but I can’t be bothered cooking anything. Instead I make a stack of basic sandwiches, eating quickly. I’m on the third one when I hear footsteps in the bedroom and the creak of the door. I listen to the pad of feet across the hall to the bathroom. A few minutes later she’s walking down the hall towards me.

“You’re supposed to be resting, Bronte.”

“So are you.” She smiles shyly as she rounds the corner. I'd stripped her when I put her to bed, leaving only her lace thong on. She's beautiful; hair mussed up and curling over her bare shoulders, nipples pebbling in the cool night air.

“Come here,” I say, my voice thick with emotion, holding out my hand, needing her near me. She steps into my arms with a sigh, pressing her lips to my chest. We both breathe deep,melting into each other.

I never realised it could be this way with a woman. That it wouldn’t be about the sex — though the sex is amazing — but about the moments in between. It’s a different kind of intimacy, knowing you have a partner, knowing they have your back. Before Bronte, it had been a long time since anyone had ever held me the way she does.

“Hungry?” I ask, offering her the last half of my sandwich. She takes it with a soft smile, sniffing at it.

“Wait, is this peanut butter and jelly? ” There’s that same wonder in her voice that she gets every time she’s excited about something in this realm. She takes a bite, her smile turning into a frown as she chews, staring at the sandwich before taking another bite.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” I ask.

She ducks said head against my chest, cheeks flushed. “Don’t laugh. I didn’t realise the jelly part was just jam, and now I feel stupid.”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face. “What did you think it was?” I say slowly.

She takes one look at me and snorts. “I don’t know!” she laughs, devolving into a fit of giggles, and I lose it along with her. I don’t even know why we’re laughing — it’s not that funny. I suppose it’s stress relief. “I’m an idiot,” she mutters, leaning into me, her shoulders still shaking with mirth.

I pick her up as she wipes the tears from her eyes, and her legs curl around my waist, moving in sync as if we’ve been doing this our whole lives and not just four days. The towel around my hips is barely hanging on, sliding to the floor as I carry us back to the bedroom, and I don’t bother to pick it up. We slide into a bed that’s still warm from where she’s been sleeping and I sigh as finally I get to lay down. It’s been a fucking long day.

Bronte curls against my body, her head on my shoulder, my arm under her, her leg hooked over mine. Her hand trails down my chest and stomach in a slow tease, and by the time she reaches my cock I’m hard, growing even more stiff in her hand as she plays with me, pulling the foreskin back and forth over the head at a lazy pace. She’s not trying to get me off; this is that same intimacy as before, a bone-deep comfort, though it still feels fucking good.

My mate. I must have done something amazing in a past life, because I sure as hell don’t deserve her now.

“How is your leg?” she asks softly.

“Healed, thanks to you.”

“Are you sure? I can check th?—”

“I’m sure.” It’s a lie; there’s a dull ache in the bone, but I’m not having her do anything more with her magic tonight, not when she passed out from exhaustion earlier.

“That wasn’t an accident today, was it?” She lifts her head to look me in the eye, her hand stilling, though she keeps her fingers wrapped around my cock. “What happened out there?”

“There’s a lone alpha that’s been in pack territory in the past week. A few days ago, he spent the night with one of our women.”

“Is that frowned upon?”

I can’t help but smile at the way she manages to infuse her tone with just the right level of scepticism, implying how unimpressed she is at the idea of policing what women in our pack do.

“No. She can do what she likes. Relationships outside the pack are necessary; when everyone is fucking each other within a pack it begins to feel incestuous.” I shake my head. “It’s not Rebecca that’s the problem; it’s this particular asshole. I can’t remember his name, but I met him last year — at Anita’s gala, ironically. Since then he’s been kicked out of his pack by the new alpha, who clearly didn’t have the balls to kill him.”

I see the flash of understanding in her eyes before she looks away, laying her head back down on my chest. We’ve never spoken directly about my former alpha, and confessing to my mate that I fought him to the death hasn’t been top on my list of priorities.

I think she’s only beginning to realise exactly what kind of man I am.

“What has he done? This alpha… what makes him an asshole?”

“I caught his scent today — recognised it from last year — and followed the trail to a dead end, as if he’d vanished into thin air.”

“Or through a portal.”

I freeze at her words, and she glances back up at my face. “I take it that didn’t occur to you?”

“No, it didn’t.” I growl low in my throat. “That would explain how the fucker managed to get a huge bear trap out on the upper ridge, when the only road in is this one,” I say, gesturing out the window in the direction of the road.

“So it was a hunting trap… I thought it was, based on how your leg looked. You scared me today. There were a lot of stressed wolves.”

“I need to train them better. If someone had been waiting for an opportunity to attack me — which may have been a real possibility — announcing to the entire world that your alpha is injured is fucking stupid.”

“Yeah, it is.” She reaches up, brushing my hair back from my forehead. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say this rogue wolf probably doesn’t have the skills to open a portal by himself, right?”

“Right. You’re saying he had help.”

“A witch would need to have set foot on this land before, near the area where the scent was found.”

“The only witch who has set foot here in the past twenty years is the elf we regularly use to remove the glamour. She’s the one who set the ward around this land.”

Bronte’s eyes narrow, her expression one that I never expected to see on her face. If I had to put a label to it, I’d call it bloodthirsty . “I was hoping you’d say something along those lines. West, there’s no ward on this land. There’s no protection spell over this forest. If there ever was one, it’s been removed. That elf witch is up to no good — I can feel it — and I think we should go pay her a visit tomorrow.”