“Life happened. Juan happened.” Her voice croaks in her throat and she looks away to hide her face as she quickly wipes it and goes back to glaring outside. A sudden hint of emotion again and she seems to curse herself out for showing weakness in the form of a tear. So much hostility in her aura and I wish she would open up and tell me, to talk it out, to share and ease her weighty burden.
“Carmen, I’m trying to help. We don’t know what went down after. We only know what we had to do at the homestead to keep the people safe. You have to open up to …..” I try for my therapy tone of Luna, the easing of a wolf to confide but she doesn’t let me finish.
“I don’t need to open up. I’m fine. The past is done. Nothing can change it and I just want to make up for what I caused and be done with all of this.” A curt snap, a tightening of fingers on the wheel and that abrasive manner which is meant to shut me up. Only I’m as stubborn as she is. I grit my teeth to curb my irritation at her and lock my eyes on her profile as she stares at where we are heading.
“You didn’t cause this! I told you already.” I grind out.
“Yes, I did….. not just my mom. All of it. Had I never interfered, had I never pulled Colton back to me and tried to keep you apart when I did. Because of me you left, because of that Colton stood up to him, split the pack and abandoned the mountain. That was the worst thing for everyone. Colton was the influence that kept the people moderately safe. Whether he knew it or not. His father is a devil and without Colton’s presence, without the hope of his heir being his bright shining legacy, Juan let all the evil in his heart finally out. I did that. I fucked up what the fates wanted, and they have punished me for it ever since.” She spins her head at me, her pallor pale, her eyes shining with moisture as she struggles to hold it all in and I see the deep-rooted guilt etched all over the sudden show of vulnerable in her face. I’m speechless as I stare at her in open mouthed shock, trying to absorb her words and trying to organize some logic to her statement.
“It’s not that simple, and the fates… they really did intend for things to go the way they did. It was all part of the plan, Carmen. All those paths needed to be walked on to get us to where we needed to be.”
“Was it, really?” she asks sarcastically, oozing bitterness. “I don’t think so.” She signals as we approach a turn off and follows the road off behind a row of traffic and looks back at me, biting harshly with a haughty tone. “My mom, she was just another notch. Another lashing from a whip that has been coming down on me since Colton imprinted on you…….. So, if I did nothing wrong, then why am I being punished by the fates?” she throws her hair back over her shoulder and taps her nails impatiently on the wheel as the traffic slows us right down and doesn’t seem to want to look at me anymore. I can taste the growing energy around her and it’s not friendly at all. She has so much pent-up anger, pain, and something else deep inside that I can’t pull apart. A huge gulf of darkness that’s clawing at her aura and screaming out.
“What do you mean by that? What else has happened to you besides Colton’s break up? Stop being vague and just talk to me! I’m trying to help, to understand and I’m not psychic.” Her emotions are making me antsy, on edge as my senses are heightened and an overwhelming agony starts to claw at my insides. I’m feeding from her now she’s releasing some of her hidden distress.
“Why? Because you’re my Luna now? Because you suddenly care about me? We were never friends, in fact the exact opposite, and if this is sympathy because of my mom I don’t want it. I don’t need your pity!”
I can’t respond to that because it’s none of those things, yet all of them too. I have empathy; I see someone that may be more than I thought she was but, yes, it’s also driven because of what we now share…. loss of our mothers in a horrific way. And the loss of her pack when they left her, the loss of her family. It’s complex and deeper than any of those singular things and partly because, since I became Luna, this care, this need to look after and comfort my people is as natural as breathing. I feel guilt towards her, because of my part in taking her mate from her on top of everything. I can’t fight it, and it doesn’t differentiate between people, even with our pasts. Colton told me it was the marking that did it, brought up all those necessary Luna gifts that were bestowed upon me the second I was his mate. To be a better leader, and I can’t switch it off. I care because I’m meant to.
“Juan blamed me…. He punished me in that damn box…. for weeks! I failed to do what he wanted me to do, and his son left and mated up with you. I had one job that I didn’t do, and Juan, well, we all know how crazy he is. If it wasn’t for others in the pack and my mom getting me out, reasoning for my release…… I would still be there while my father didn’t give a shit about what he did to me.” It’s almost shrill as she hits an emotional peak and then inhales to calm herself down, gripping the wheel, shifting in her seat harshly, gritting her teeth, and the tears that wash down her cheek are swiped away aggressively.
“He put you in an isolation tank?” I blanche at her words, tensing enough that Meadow shifts in her sleep at my sudden reaction and murmurs before settling back down again. I’m shocked that Juan would see fit to punish her for something she had no control over.
“He did…. and he made sure I felt pain every single day for disobeying him. He only let me heal when my life depended on it, because he didn’t want his new toy to die and give him nothing to torture anymore. He had nowhere else to vent. Colton gone, half the pack too. His prisoners at his secret lab…. All he had were the people who opposed him, and the femme who failed to do what he demanded. Juan’s sick in the head on a level we never truly comprehended!” The pain in her voice goes far beyond bitterness and for a second, I feel a flash of the hatred, resentment, and the lingering pain from what she endured with this man.
“He tortured you, for Colton… for me.?” I feel sick to my stomach knowing the depths of agony she endured while we were oblivious in our new life and barely gave her a second thought. Never would we have guessed that after being the losing one in this scenario that she would still carry the weight of our consequences in such horrifying ways.
“If I had known what would happen, I would’ve left when the rest did, but my mom…. She needed me.” Her words come out softer, broken somehow, and she stifles a wavering sob coming up from the depths. The intensity of her heartache finally coming out to show face and it hammers through my soul. She’s suffered because of what we did.
“Carmen, I’m so sorry.” I can’t even begin to understand what she has been through and to look at her, you would never know. The wall is up again and growing taller before my eyes. The fierce is on show once again and her only focus in all of this was her mother’s safety. The final blow was when the fates let her die. No wonder she thinks she’s cursed or somehow being punished by the higher powers.
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