Page 63 of Alpha On The Hunt: My Luna Stole My Sons

Hours later.

After our early wake-up call this morning, we spent all morning and into the afternoon tidying up the destruction and sifting through what remained, trying to salvage anything we could. Most of everything is broken, and luckily Sondra had gotten rid of most of the cars that were stored there. However, the tools and farming equipment would cost a fair bit to replace or fix.

We dumped it into the huge skip bins, which I had the local garbage company drop off.

Yet as the day’s heat slowly dies, I notice Lexa has become awfully quiet. Throwing the last sheet of tin into the scrap metal pile, I glance over to see both skips overflowing, and we still had two piles of scrap metal, a pile of salvage items that we now have to figure out what to do with, and another skip-worthy pile of debris left.

“How about we call it a day?” Michelle yells out to me while tossing some trash into the overflowing skip bin. I nod, wiping my forehead on the back of my hand and peeling the gloves off.

She is right. We’ve been at this for hours, we have made some progress, but it is stifling hot out here still. Walking over to her, she sighs; Michelle is also covered in dirt.

“My back is killing!” she groans, placing her hands behind her and pushing on her lower back as she leans backward.

“Yeah,” I tell her breathlessly. This heat is really getting to me, and I feel on the verge of passing out.

“You’re a little red?” Michelle comments and I touch my face before fanning myself with my hands.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asks me while her eyes roam over me, and I glance down at my shorts and crop top.

“Ah no, we’ve been working our asses off.” I chuckle, turning to look at the packhouse, and Michelle moves to follow me back to the house.

“The girl that just came back from patrol said she saw Axton’s patrols lingering at our borders, she told them to leave, but they refused, stating they aren’t on our land, so we can’t make them,” Michelle tells me, and I roll my eyes. I am not dealing with Axton right now. I want to strangle him, and if he was right in front of me, I might actually try it.

“I’ll deal with it tomorrow. For now, I’m going to shower and feed the boys their afternoon snack." Michelle nods, and we both head toward the house when I hear Marco call out, making me stop. Turning back around, I see him toss a broken car motor into the skip bin as if it was merely a piece of trash he had picked up off the ground. The pile in the skip bin drops lower under its heavy weight.

“Are you heading inside?” He calls out, and I nod. He gives me a thumbs up.

“I will finish this last section and head in myself then!” he tells us, and Michelle and I head back inside the house. The moment I step inside, I am blasted by the air conditioning, and I sigh.

“Are you alright, dear,” my mother asks from the kitchen, and I move toward her. She quickly fills a glass with ice-cold water and hands it to me. Within two large mouthfuls, I drained the glass and set it back in the sink.

“The boys went down for a nap ten minutes ago,” she tells me, and I nod, yet she sniffs the air subtly, and I smell myself wondering if I stink. I can’t smell anything, yet she watches me for a few seconds. Worry is etched into her features when she cups my cheek with her hand.

“Gosh, you feel like you’re burning up?” she murmurs, her brows furrowing.

“Yeah, it’s stifling hot outside.” I groan.

“I just need to stand in front of the air conditioning for a bit,” I tell her.

“Air conditioning? Elena, I have the heater on. It is not hot. That breeze is damn near icy!” she tells me, and I blink at her. Only then do I notice what she is wearing. She has a long sleeve top on and track pants, her fluffy white robe over the top, and she has stolen a pair of my slippers. It makes me remember Michelle and her comments outside.

My gaze moves to the air conditioning, and I see the temperature is on heat, my brows furrowed in confusion. I could have sworn it felt cold when I came in. Surely, I am not so hot that the heat feels cold.

“Maybe you should lie down and drink some more water.” My mother worries, her eyes assessing me, and I roll mine at her. “I’m fine,” I tell her, heading for the stairs so I can go shower. However, as I start to climb them, my legs go funny, almost like they are on the verge of giving out from under me. My vision darkens and warps as vertigo washes over me. I grab the banister, waiting for the dizziness to settle, but it gets worse.

“Elena?” my mother calls out, and I turn to where she stands at the bottom of the stairs just as Marco walks inside.

“All done, I will organize for some—” Marco stops dead in his tracks, a peculiar expression sweeping over his face. I blink as he blurs, my vision tunneling, and I can no longer feel my fingertips holding the banister or my arms. Marco sniffs the air, and a feral growl tears out of him just as I feel my eyes roll into the back of my head. The next thing I see is black.

I don’t feel the ground when I hit it, I feel nothing, but I can hear Marco’s voice.

“Call Axton. She’s in heat!” Marco snaps at my mother, his voice sounding close.

“I thought… I just wasn’t sure…. I knew something was wrong… but she-wolves can’t smell heat!” my mother panics.

“Louise ring—” Panic courses through me at his words and with the last of my energy.

“No!” I order, the words sounding hollow to my ears when I lose all sense of everything, falling deaf and numb to everyone and everything around me, blinded by the blistering heat surging through me.

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