Page 61 of Banished From the Pack

Tipping back my head, I issue a few wolf yips. A minute later, Callan and Ethan stumble out onto the porch.

“What is it?” Callan says. “You’re up early.”

I hand them the paper that was pinned to the tree.

“Fuck,” Ethan says, punching a fist into his palm. “We just got her back. Who tracked us?”

“No one had to track us,” I say. “We’re not hiding her. We welcomed her, and she accepted.”

“They can come through the three of us if they want her,” Callan says, an edge of ferocity in his voice.

I can’t wait to exact blood for this threat on Luna’s life, but I keep my cool.

“Nothing to do now but have our coffee and wait for the bastards to show their faces.”

When we step inside, Luna comes padding into the kitchen on bare feet, her hair sticking out in five different directions, looking hot as hell itself in a baggy t-shirt and bare legs.

“What’s going on?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. “I heard y’all talking outside.”

“There’s been a threat on your life.”

She eyes the paper and frowns.

I want to eat the heart of the man who caused her pain. If this came from Axel, I’ll be all too happy to tell him I filled his True Mate’s womb with my seed—right before I rip his head off.

“Come here, baby girl,” I say, patting my thigh.

She minces across the room and sits on my knee, casting a beguiling gaze at each of us with those big eyes. “I brought more conflict,” she whispers.

“None of that,” I say, squeezing her hip. “You’re part of the pack. We fight for our own. You’re ours now, and we’re not letting you go.”

Tears well up in her baby blue eyes. “Thank you.”

I turn to my brothers. They deserve the truth, and they deserve it coming from my mouth.

“Luna came to my room last night,” I say. “I fucked her good and hard.”

Callan nods. “As you should.”

Ethan smiles and takes a drink of coffee. “That’s our Alpha. Taking what’s yours.”

“Alright then,” I say, standing. I can smell the ashy dead smell of vamps coming closer. I’m ready to fight side by side with my brothers to save the woman who changed us all in the short time we’ve known her. “Let’s win this fight. For Luna.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Luna

Fog hangs heavy and expectant in the woods surrounding the triplet’s house. There’s an eeriness to the sounds of crickets and frogs singing their dawn songs that sends chills rippling across my skin. A bird adds its piercing cry at random intervals. It stirs a sense of foreboding I can’t kick from my bloodstream. Someone wants me dead. But who? Why?

“Get on back in the house, Luna,” Warrick commands me, giving my bottom a little squeeze. We’re sitting on the porch swing while Callan stands on one of the support posts and Ethan sits on the step. “We’re going to kill whatever assholes posted this warning, but you need to be inside, out of harm’s way.”

I lean back on his knee, arms folded over my chest. “You said we were a pack. If you fight, I fight. It’s as simple as that.”

The triplets look back and forth between each other, sending their secret messages that I don’t understand, not having grown up with them.

“You listen here,” I say, not appreciating being kept out of a decision about myself. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime. “I’m not a puppy. I’m a full-grown wolf, same as y’all. They said you had to give me up, which means this is my fight. If you want to fight by my side, I’m honored to have each and every one of you, but you can’t cut me out. I’m going to fight to stay here, and if you fight to keep me here, too, then I’ll just love y’all all the more for it.”

I chose Warrick tonight, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one I love. I realized that when I lay thinking on it last night, trying to decide. I’m fighting to stay not just with Warrick but with all of them. And just because I chose him last night, that doesn’t mean I’ll choose him every night. But that’s a conversation for another time, when the smell of vampire isn’t drifting into the clearing in front of the house.