Page 169 of Luna: Posy 2

"You asked me before I left Green River if I thought you had hurt me by choice, and I did,” I admitted with a sniffle. "I didn't know. I didn't know he was hurting you both, too. To be honest, I think Lark hid a lot from me, and I was so fogged by pain most of the time, I really didn’t understand what was going on."

James dropped his head, not meeting my eyes, but Aiden stood, took off his suit coat, and pulled up the back of his shirt. Amid all the scars, the one that drew my eye was a set of initials - KAB - that had been brutally branded in the center of his spine right above his waistband.

It was a twin to mine, right down to the location.

"Father didn't want us to forget who we belonged to," Aiden whispered, fixing his shirt and sitting down again.

"We've hired a couple of therapists to work with the pack." James lifted his face to look at me again. "They have everyone doing art therapy to get our mental health to a better place. I've been painting, and Aiden's learning to knit. No therapy can ever erase what we did to you, though. We'll go to our graves with that guilt on our souls."

"James—"

"And rightly so," Aiden interrupted me. "We deserve it, Posy. We deserve every lash of our conscience, every sleepless night, every word your mates said. We ourselves don't even deserve mates. We've already agreed that, if we find them, we'll ask them to reject us."

"Not that it will be hard to convince them," James snorted. "No one would want to be stuck for life with a pathetic bastard who sacrificed his baby sister to the monster just to save his own skin and sanity."

I cut my eyes to my silent and stone-faced mates. Masondidtell me that they'd had 'a talk' with my brothers before we left Green River. I hadn't asked questions, but I could guess what had been said. I knew my mates. I was just glad that they hadn't hurt or killed my brothers.

It broke my heart, though, to think they may have made James and Aiden believe they were unworthy of mates.

Shifters needed mates to have purpose and happiness in their lives. Mates could heal each other, and not just physically. Sometimes, a mate was all that kept a shifter sane.

"I don't believe that," I told my brothers in a firm tone. "No one is beyond forgiveness. Anyone can redeem themselves. Everyone should have a second chance. Youdodeserve mates, and if you find them, I forbid you to make them reject you as some form of punishment you've given yourselves."

They hung their heads, and I could see my argument wasn't making an impact, so I switched tactics.

"Don't you understand that you would be punishing two innocent girls, too?" That got their attention. "Two girls who've dreamed their whole life of finding their mates, and you'd deny them that out of a sense of guilt? If the Goddess sees fit to give you her best gift, who are you to refuse or reject it and hurt two more people?"

They both looked at me, hope at war with despair in their eyes.

"I can't forget what happened. Ican't. But I forgive you," I murmured. "James, Aiden, I forgive you."

"You're too sweet, baby sister." James shook his head with a tiny smile. "You'd forgive the devil himself."

"And invite him in for lemonade and cookies so he could tell you his life story," Aiden added, also with a tiny smile.

"You have no idea," Wyatt chuckled. "Remind us to tell you about her 'interrogation' of Leo Halder sometime."

"That was aninterview,not an interrogation!" I pouted. "And it worked, didn't it?"

James raised his eyebrows, and Aiden giggled, something I hadn't heard in years. It was amazing how much the happy sound lightened my heart.

Whether my mates agreed with me or not, I knew I'd done the right thing in forgiving my brothers.

Now, I had to work on getting them to forgive themselves.

#

Cole

Mom and Mama did a great job planning the ceremony.

After we'd told them about Posy's anxiety in big crowds and panic-inducing fear around strange men, they'd modified the traditional reception into more of an all-day buffet luncheon and got rid of the receiving line part all together.

That would have taken hours and hours, and I think both Mom and Mama knewwe'dnever make it that long, let alone our dear girl. With a pack of more than four thousand members, we would have been shaking hands until midnight.

This is much better, I thought to myself.

We sat at a long table on the stage at the front of the community hall with waiters bringing us food and drinks. Everyone could see and approach us for congratulations, but Posy still had a modicum of distance and security up here.

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