Page 18 of Moonlit Choosing Ritual

“You’ve endangered the packs by revealing your existence to humans,” Kenzie said through gritted teeth.

“The fuck!” It was absolute bullshit because all werewolves went to human towns once in a while. I’d witnessed Liam and others going there on several occasions.

Kenzie shrugged. “Liam’s gone berserk. He’ll go to any lengths to steal a part of our lands. Why don’t you just challenge him? If it comes to war, I’m sure we’ll take him in less than a day.”

“Next time anyone goes to the human town, make sure our spies have photo or video evidence.”

There were many reasons I didn’t want to challenge him, but the most important was that he and I used to play when we were just pups, when my mother would go to visit her sister, Liam’s mother, in the Eclipse pack. I had taken over every pack that surrounded his and mine, but I spared him just because of that connection. Lately, however, he had been a pain in the ass.

“No, I won’t challenge him, but we’ll talk to him,” I suggested.

“Damn it, Talon! That’s what you’ve been doing all this time. Just challenge him.”

I took a ragged breath in. “Some other time, Kenzie.” I was tired and I needed to wrap myself around Kimble’s soft body.

What? No. Fuck. Correction. Aria. I needed Aria.

But one thing was for sure. I had to get away from Kimble as soon as possible. That’s what I had been telling myself for the last twenty-four hours.

“Make sure that Kimble doesn’t leave the Alpha compound,” I instructed him and dragged myself to my bedroom. Aria was already asleep, naked. On a normal day I would have pulled her to me and gone off to sleep. This was a normal day and I was going to behave normally. So I took a bath and slipped beside her, drifting off to sleep. The issue was that I remained on my side of the bed, my back turned to her. In her sleep, she caught my scent and rolled toward me.

Normal. Normal. Normal.

Chapter 10

Kimble

The next day, I was up at 6 AM and in the main house by 7 AM. Shirley looked at me with pity in her eyes when I reported for duty. Her eyes went to my shirt that I had buttoned to the top to hide the collar, and she shook her head. Interestingly, she didn’t say anything against Talon.

All the others in the room with her looked at me with disgust. Some girls snickered, glancing at me. It seemed like yesterday’s incident had already caught fire amongst the locals.

“Is it true she has a collar around her neck?” a girl asked.

“That’s what you do to the mutts!” her friends giggled. “Goddamn mutt!”

Anger and embarrassment were not the right mix. I was furious with what he had done to me yesterday, and right now my cheeks burned from pure embarrassment. Once again tears pooled and made my vision blurry, but I blinked them away.

Shirley assigned them duties and asked me to stay in the room until the Alpha left. No one talked to me, and so I sat there alone, trying my best to remain calm and not think about the night before. I hadn’t slept as the humiliation burned through me. How could a man so beautiful on the outside, at the helm of affairs, be such a bastard? As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, I had that acute pain in my belly again somewhere toward the dawn.

“Kimble!” Shirley called me. “The Alpha has left. You can go upstairs and do his room.”

“Okay,” I replied, getting up and feeling defeated. It was good that I didn’t have to face him. Seriously, I couldn’t decide whether this life was better than my previous one. Picking up afew sheets and towels, I walked to Alpha’s bedroom. I knocked softly on the door, ensuring I didn’t barge in.

“Come in,” a soft voice came.

I opened the door and saw Aria still in bed, wrapped up in silk sheets. She looked at me with hooded eyes. “Oh, it’s you,” she said dryly.

A pang of jealousy slammed into my heart and I felt like peeling that woman from the bed. Shit. What was wrong with me? I dismissed that odd feeling the instant it washed over me.

I gasped when my eyes went to the open cupboard, all his clothes were on the ground, lying in a messy heap. It looked as though a hurricane had swept through, followed by a tornado.

Aria followed my gaze and her mouth dropped open. “I don’t know how that happened,” she said, bewildered. “Perhaps Alpha Talon was looking for something?”

“It’s okay,” I mumbled, baffled. “I’ll sort them out.”

As I busied myself in cleaning the room, Aria went to the bathroom. When she returned, wrapped in just a towel, she walked to the dresser. Our gazes locked as we caught each other’s reflection in the mirror. She was applying lotion to her legs, and I lowered my eyes. I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

“You hate it here, right?” she said, turning toward me.

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