Page 3 of Protector

All of my children have a mate. Some must wait to find them. Others are gifted their name, while many choose one on their own. I always thought that was what you were doing with your males. Searching for the right one to be your intended.

Right. Torn between my heart aching at losing Cal and feeling joy for Lorelei that she found forever in the man who was just kissing me… I’m not in the right headspace to think about my goddess knowing about my body count.

So I laugh. A couple walking by pick up their pace as though the crazed brunette hanging on the corner might be a dangerous threat—and they don’t know how right they are.

“I wasn’t,” I say flatly. “Because I never knew he existed.”

I could tell you. For your years of service, if you want his name…

Every wolf knows that the Luna rewards her leaders—the Alphas—with the name of their fated mate when they take over their packs. It’s her way of thanking them for building the individual communities that keep her shifters protected and thriving.

“It’s not Cal,” I mutter, digging my claws in the chipped mortar between the dingy red bricks behind me. “Right?”

Calvin Reynolds is your sister’s true mate?—

“Then I don’t care.”

Jean Louise…

No one calls me ‘Jean Louise’ except for our goddess and maybe Lorelei sometimes. Not even my parents call me by my legal name and they’re the ones who gave it to me. I’ve always been Jeannie so when the Luna pulls out ‘Jean Louise’ like that… I’ve pushed my luck.

But can you blame me?

“It is what it is.” I shake my head, shoving my hair out of my face. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I didn’t mean it.”

You’re forgiven. I thought you knew… sometimes, when two souls meet, the connection might not be what it seems at the beginning. You were fated to meet Calvin Reynolds for this very moment.

“To play matchmaker for my twin,” I mutter.

It was meant to happen this way. Just like your fate will lead you?—

I shake my head. “It’s okay. It was a shock, but I’m not worried about my fate. Not when I still have Fallon to worry about instead.”

Fallon Witt. Lorelei’s and my assignment. The Luna tasked us with protecting her years ago because she has her own destiny to fulfill. As of the beginning of October, the plan that was put into place long before I was before was set into motion when Fallon left New York to visit a supe town known as Winter Creek.

That’s when Lorelei and I were put on pause. But that’s the thing. Our guardian assignment lasted nine years. The friendship that began when the Luna told my twin and I that we were to watch over her is real. Sure, Lorelei is Fallon’s best friend—good twin—while Fallon likes to refer to me as her ‘frenemy’—bad twin—but that just means we’re both worried about her.

She’s a supe, too, but up until she rolled into Winter Creek, Fallon had no idea. By now, she has to, but we haven’t heard anything from her in weeks besides random updates from our goddess.

I’d give anything to see the look on her face when she discovered she’s not only part witch, part wolf shifter, but that she’s the reincarnation of a halfling who was mauled to death by a wild wolf seventy years ago. That would definitely distract me from the whole ‘my boyfriend is probably banging my sister right about now’...

And just as I have that though, the Luna smiles down on me. I feel it in the way the sliver of the moon over my head makes my normally tanned skin glow softly, and I know that anyone looking at me now would see that my brown eyes are suddenly silver.

If you honestly feel that way, I have an assignment that might help.

“What? Yes. Anything.”

You have two days to set your affairs in order. After that, the train won’t run for another moon.

Train? What?

“You mean to, like, Manhattan?”

Not quite, child…

CHAPTER 2

COLLIDE, BOOM, WHAT?

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