Page 25 of Return to the Pack

“She’s the one who severed our connection, Axel. She broke me. And now you want her to welcome us into the pack? Oh, no. Take me home.” I wish I weren’t sitting between two strong men, or I’d have bolted for the woods already. My wolf is crying to race away in fear at the reminder of how dangerous the elder is to us.

Warrick, who’s parked his bike next to Ethan’s, strides toward the truck. “Is there a problem?” he demands, eyeing my face with concern through the driver’s window.

“I’ll say.” I lift my hand and stab the air in the elder’s direction. “She’s the one who broke our True Mate bond. And supposedly she’s the one who’s going to forge the pack bond between us all.”

Warrick studies Axel. “Is this true?”

“I’m afraid so,” Axel says, appearing glum. “She’s a revered elder in the pack. Magic runs through her veins. She’s conducted all ceremonies in the pack since before I was a pup.”

“And you didn’t think to inform Luna?” Warrick rests his hands on the sill of the window and glowers at Axel.

“No,” he growls back. “This is how the pack works. Sometimes, we do things we don’t like for the sake of others. An Alpha most of all.”

“Let me handle this, baby girl,” Warrick says to me. “Wait here.” He casts one more glare at Axel before striding toward the elder while I try to shrink inside the truck seat.

“Not your best move, Alpha,” Callan says.

“Shut the fuck up,” Axel snaps, but his expression looks wretched. He turns to me and pierces me with his aquamarine eyes. “I’m sorry, Luna. Honestly, it escaped my mind, what with everything that’s gone on of late. And she’s a part of the pack. It’s not her fault that I had her perform that ceremony.”

“I don’t like her,” I say in a quavering voice. All the pain of this past year floods my body, erasing this last joyous week of bonding. It’s as if a fire of hurt burns through me—a fire that I thought I’d extinguished. It burns up my heart and my wolf soul at once.

Several paces off, Warrick and the elder are having what looks like a heated exchange. Some of the other pack members have stopped their preparations and are staring at them. Finally, Warrick leads Elder Amexaryl in our direction.

“I don’t want to talk to her. Don’t make me talk to her,” I say, seizing Callan’s arm.

“Just hear what she has to say,” Callan soothes.

My heart’s beating so fast as the elder reaches the truck, I think it’s going to shoot from my throat and my wolf shoot from my skin. Still clinging to Callan’s arm, I clutch Axel’s hand, too, needing even more reassurance.

Elder Amexaryl peers in the window as her wispy gray hair billows about her head, caught by the breeze. Her pale, almost white-colored eyes feel as if they’re probing my soul. “Child,” she says in her quavering voice. “Would you be so kind as to step out of the truck? It seems we have a few things to discuss.”

“No!” I blurt and bear down on Callan’s arm and Axel’s hand.

Elder Amexaryl steps back as if I’ve agreed and waits for Axel to open the door.

He extricates his hand from my grip and slides from the front seat, holding his hand out to me. He’s a good pack member, respecting the rules and order of the pack system.

I’m not. I press into Callan.

“Go on, Luna. We’re here to protect you. No one lays a hand on my mate or I’ll rip her head from her body myself,” he assures me in a low growl.

The ghosts of past pain nearly split me in two. I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”

“Luna. Do as requested,” Axel commands, still holding his hand out to me. But he doesn’t use his wolf dominance to force me, and I hold onto the relief in that. He could make me obey, especially because the pack is here to witness my rebellious behavior, but he lets me know he trusts me so he doesn’t have to. My wolf trusts him, and she urges me to obey our Alpha like a good wolf. “If you don’t like what she says, we’ll make other arrangements.”

“Are you just saying that to get me out of the truck?” I ask.

“No. I give you my word,” Axel says, his gaze as open and unguarded as the sky above him.

With trepidation, I reach for his hand and let him tug me out of the vehicle. I grip his hand and haul him with me to step before the elder. As I study her, my wolf notices she doesn’t look so tough. We’re young and healthy. We could take her.

The corners of her lips curve in her wrinkled face as if she can read my thoughts. “Child, my role in this pack is to do as I must… Nothing more, nothing less. It’s a role passed down through generations. My mother, and my mother’s mother, and her mother before all shared the same gift.”

“You almost destroyed me!” I cry, unable to hold back the howl of pain my wolf feeds my heart at the reminder of the anguish we experienced at her hand.

“I didn’t do that. Your Alpha did,” she says, her gaze moving from me to Axel and back.

Axel’s hand gives mine a reassuring squeeze. He said the same—that it’s his fault, not hers. But I love him now. I forgave him. The pain remains, though, at least a part of it, like the scar on my arm that reminds me of what he did.