Broken Moon by Laken Cane
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’d firmly refused to let myself really believe my life was about to change, that my wolf was coming, that I would finally be free. I believed it, but I didn’t believe it so much that I would be jumping out of my skin with impatience and fear and worry.
I knew that if it didn’t work, if something went wrong or the alpha couldn’t actually break the chains that hobbled me, I would be more than broken. I’d be shattered. So I’d forced myself to put that hope in a nice, safe compartment in my mind, and I’d remained calm.
Until now.
“God, please let it work,” I whispered. “Let me shift.”
I paced my bedroom floor, my phone in my hand, my demon blade in its sheath at my hip, waiting. It was eleven o’clock and honestly, I didn’t expect Jared to call until after midnight, maybe even two or three in the morning. He would have pack business to settle before he could come for me. I considered calling him to say I’d come to him. I could wait in the woods for however long it took him to get there.
But even now, before he’d even taken control of my wolf and accepted me as his, my brain wanted me to wait for him because he’d said I should.
“I will come to you.”
“Hurry, Alpha,” I murmured. Despite my best attempts, I was jumping out of my skin. My stomach hurt, my heart pounded, and I was using up precious energy, energy I would need when Jared ripped my wolf from my body. I wasn’t completely recovered from my battle with the exsoloup and I needed to fucking relax.
I forced myself to stand still and deep breathe, angry with my lack of control. My anxiety was growing with every second that ticked by, and I had to get a grip.
My ringtone sounded, and I jerked, dropping the phone.
“Shit,” I cried, scrambling to pick it up, then stared at the screen, dismayed. It wasn’t Jared. It was my mother. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, and then I answered, impatient, sweating, sick to my stomach. “Mom?”
And a voice I hadn’t heard for twelve years slid into my ear. “It’s not Susan,” Adam Thorne said. “It’s your alpha. We need to talk, Kaitlyn. Come to your mother’s house. I’ll be waiting.” He was silent for a few seconds as my breath froze in my lungs and I struggled to remember how to speak. “Come alone. I would like things to remain calm and for no one to get hurt. You’d like that as well, yes? If you bring weapons, I will take them from you, so save yourself that humiliation.”
I was squeezing my phone so hard I was afraid I might shatter the screen, and by the time I was able to move again, he’d ended the call. His unspoken threat was obvious, and my mother was in danger.
I’d thought—hoped—tonight would be the night I was given my freedom by the alpha of the Gray Shadow Pack. But apparently, tonight was the night I would kill the alpha of the Stone Moon Pack.
I’d needed a reason and a chance. He was handing me both.
My anxiety fled as I prepared quietly and quickly. I was cold, dark, and emotionless. I didn’t call Jared as I donned my stab vest—it wasn’t going to save me from the alpha and his warriors, but it could buy me time—because calling him for backup might get my mother killed. Adam Thorne knew what he was doing.
I found it strange that he didn’t just come after me. He could have sent killers after me any time during the last twelve years, but he hadn’t. He could have sent his warriors to pick me up, but he’d completely ignored me—until now. Still, he didn’t seem to have murder on his mind.
Too bad for him that I couldn’t say the same.
I didn’t usually carry my gun—a revolver loaded with silver shotshells—but I lifted it from its case on the top shelf of my closet and despite the alpha telling me to leave my weapons at home, I buckled on my gun belt and slid it into its holster.
By the time I got into my car, I was loaded down with weapons—blades and silver stakes, mainly. Silver might weaken a wolf a bit, but it needed to be inside him to do any real damage. I could stake a wolf just like a vampire and though that might not instantly kill him, it would come damn close.
I’d sent Ash to sleep with Lucy when I’d begun preparing for Jared’s visit, and when I quietly left the house, neither of them stirred. If she’d heard me leaving, Lucy would simply have thought I was heading out with Jared.
Fucking Adam Thorne was going to cost me my shift tonight. That was reason enough to end the bastard right there.
Did I really think I could kill the alpha? Nah. Not really. He was alpha for a reason—and I was a wolf who couldn’t shift. I was also still weak and wounded from my encounter with the exsoloup, but I wouldn’t let any of that dim my confidence. If the chance came, I couldn’t hesitate. We were on his radar now, exactly as my mother had feared. Until we were Jared’s wolves, we were fair game.
I remembered how no one had stuck up for us the first time Thorne had messed with us. Part of me—a huge part—was afraid Jared wouldn’t interfere now. Not that I could have asked him to go with me. Adam might not want to kill me, for some reason, but I couldn’t take a chance that he wouldn’t kill my mother. He would hurt her, at the very least.
It took me an eternity to reach my mother’s house. After I turned off the engine, I sat in the dark of the car and one by one, I forced myself to take off my weapons and leave them in the car. Even my gun. Especially my gun.
I kept two blades—the blade I’d most used before I’d taken the demon blade, and the demon blade. I figured Adam would let me get by with bringing a couple of blades to the meeting, but he’d have taken my gun immediately.
Everything was quiet and dark, and I wondered where her housemates were. As I walked up the stone path toward her front door, two of Adam’s warriors stepped from the shadows.
I tensed and reached for my blade, but I didn’t pull it. “Where’s my mother?”
“The alpha is waiting,” one of them said. “Come with us.”
So they hadn’t roused the entire house, which meant they wanted things to remain quiet. If they’d planned to kill me, they would have snuck up on me like the assholes they were and slid a blade into my heart. Maybe.
The night was cold, but nothing to a wolf. Still, I shivered. The night sky seemed vast and so high, filled with stars I couldn’t really see in the city. I glanced up as we walked, wondering if I would live to see the next full moon. It would be arriving before the month was out, and if Jared had given me my shift, that moon would have finally pulled my wolf out with her light. What a gift that would have been.
“Stop it, Princess. You’re a warrior. No more whining.”
I nodded, as though my father were beside me, training me, forcing me to be strong. Maybe he’d known all along I’d need a little extra something. Maybe he’d had a feeling. He’d only called me Princess when I’d shown weakness or pain. It was his equivalent to “sissy” or “crybaby,” and I did everything I could to stop him from saying that word. I’d wanted so badly to make him proud, and I still did, even if he wasn’t really there to see.
Even though I’d been young when I’d been forced from the pack, I hadn’t forgotten the two wolves walking beside me. Edgar and Greg, brothers who looked enough alike to be twins, though Edgar was a couple of years older than Greg.
They’d been the ones who’d stood behind my mother and me, forcing us to stay put and watch as Adam Thorne and my dad had shifted and begun to fight—although “fight” was the wrong word, really. My father had been beaten by Adam’s warriors, and by the time he’d faced the alpha, he was already too far gone to do much.
It hadn’t been a fight. It had been a slaughter. I still remembered the sounds of that battle, the brightness of the blood, and the sounds and smells of the crowd. The entire pack had watched the alpha punish Daniel Silver for betraying them. They’d cheered, filled with rage and contempt, as my father had died.
Edgar and Greg had refused to let my mother hold me or cover my eyes, and in the end, she’d broken down and gone a little crazy, screaming and clawing and sobbing, but I’d remained stoic, my stare on my father, my back stiff. It was what he’d have wanted.
As far as I knew, he’d been the only wolf to ever attempt to gather forces against Adam Thorne. Adam had made a gory and effective example of my father and the few wolves he’d convinced to follow him.
Adam might have been an asshole, but he was a powerful asshole.
And finally, for the first time since the night he’d killed my father, I stood in front of the alpha. His face was at once familiar and strange, and for a few seconds, I felt like the last twelve years had never happened.
“She has a couple of blades,” Greg said. “You want us to take them?”
Adam smiled. “No,” he murmured. “We’ll let her keep her little knives.”
My ex-alpha was a good-looking man. He was the kind of “bad boy” that made a woman want to tame him, or, despite the fact that she knew it would never happen, to make him fall in love with her. I’d heard that countless times over the years—even my mother had said as much. And seeing him now, as an adult, I realized it was the truth.
Physically, he was something to look at. He was around six feet three inches tall, dark hair, a sexy smile that rarely left his face, like he knew some amusing secret that no one else was privy to. He had a fondness for animals—especially dogs—that made it hard to hate him. How could an animal lover be a monster?
But even as he was smirking and his eyes were full of sex and promises and smiles, his brutality could sneak out of nowhere and totally and quickly destroy a person.
“You’ve grown,” he said.
I curled my lip. “What have you done with my mother, Thorne?”
Anger flared in his eyes at my lack of respect, and finally, he took his stare from me and gestured at someone in the shadows. Two wolves brought my mother into the clearing, and I glanced at her, emotionless and cold, unwilling to give Adam the satisfaction of seeing my pain, fear, or worry. I would give him nothing. The ghost of my father stood at my side—not literally, but I imagined him there, watching.
In the beginning I had called for him, hoping he’d appear and take me into his ghostly arms and tell me everything was okay. That he was okay. He never had. I guessed he’d crossed over immediately.
My mother was unmarked, and instead of anger, her eyes were lit with fear. Fear for me. She was too afraid to have room for rage.
“Kait,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Please.”
I knew what she was asking. Don’t make the alpha mad. Don’t make him hurt you. Give him what he wants.
Which begged the question…
“What,” I asked the alpha, “do you want?”
His eyes glittered. “If I’d wanted you or Susan dead, I would have killed you long ago. Relax, Kaitlyn.”
I only stared at him.
He shrugged, finally, but that anger was still there. He needed submission. He needed my submission. But I would absolutely die before I gave it to him.
“I’ve been informed that Jared Walker is promising to free your wolf,” he said, the darkness in his voice mixing perfectly with the night. “You will not allow that to happen.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “It’s been twelve years, Adam. You can’t sentence me to a lifetime without my shift because of my father’s sins—or just because I cut your face.” I looked at the scar still decorating his cheek. “I see you couldn’t manage to heal it.” I was shocked the scar was still there. My baby claws shouldn’t have been able to do that to him, and even if I’d sliced him up with a knife, he was a wolf. He was alpha. He should have erased that mark like it had never happened.
And yet, there it was.
I smiled.
He sighed. “So like your father,” he murmured, but before I could puff up with pride, he continued, “selfish, weak, and stupid.”
I clenched my fists. “My father was a better man than you’ll ever be, Thorne.”
He looked at my mother. “Is that true, Mom? Was Daniel Silver a good man?” But he didn’t want an answer from her. He took a step closer to me. “There are things you don’t know, Kait. About your father, about that night…” Another step. “About yourself.”
I felt the cold power of his voice in my very soul. I was afraid to speak, because I knew if I did, my voice would crack and waver and he’d know how weak I really was. So I simply stared at him, and I put all the hatred I felt into my stare.
“You asked me what I want, so here it is. I want you. The Gray Shadow alpha can’t control you or your wolf if you’re mine, so I reclaim you. You were born my wolf, and you are still my wolf. You and Susan will come back to Stonebridge to live. I’ll take care of both of you.”
Like hell he would. “And my wolf?” I was simply curious. No way would we return to him or his pack. No way would I accept him as my alpha.
His stare wavered.
“Oh,” I said, “I see.” I didn’t wait for him to take another step toward me. I took one toward him. “Why are you so afraid of my big, bad wolf?”
He wasn’t smiling now. “As I said. There are things you don’t know.”
“So tell me.”
“My seer has shown me things, Kait. You have shown me things. I took that information and used it to best protect my pack.”
“Yourself, you mean.”
“My pack cannot be protected without me.”
I frowned. “Any decent alpha could protect the pack. If you were gone, another would step in.” Then I shook my head and gestured impatiently. “Are you saying you were shown that my wolf would kill you and leave the pack without an alpha?”
He said nothing and I could see the truth in his eyes. “Fuck,” I whispered. “You hobbled me because your seer told you that I would destroy you someday. Is that right?”
“Not only me,” he said, his voice low and dark and full of utter conviction, “but my pack. And I cannot allow that to happen.”
“I can’t believe this,” I whispered, sick to my stomach. “You’ve hobbled me all these years because of something you thought I might do in the future.”
“Kait is not evil, Adam,” my mother said, speaking finally. “You know that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. He didn’t take his stare from mine. “Evil or not, she will attempt to get her revenge. And I will reclaim her and keep her hobbled, or I will kill her. Those are the only choices.”
“There are other choices,” someone said, someone even more familiar to me than my own ex-alpha. Someone dangerous. “I will claim her.”
I gasped and spun around, already reaching for my demon blade though I had no intention of using it against him. There was just that much threat, danger, and darkness in his voice. “Alpha,” I whispered.
Somehow he’d followed me, had found me, and all fucking hell was about to break loose. And with me caught between them, the two alphas shifted and began to fight for my wolf.
For me.
