Page 74 of Rising Luna
“Teowulf,” I called to himand waited for him to meet my gaze. “When did you know?”
“Today. She woke up today and decided to stop hiding behind a mask. She rejected the bond this morning.”
Ouch. After knowing what that felt like when the bond was still new, I couldn’t imagine what he was going through when they had spent decades together. That had to make the pain worse. To have the love and life you built with someone ripped away without reason.
“I tried to talk to her about it, but she said I was with her or against her. She told me the things she had been working on.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she thinks that is better for our kind.”
“Is her wolf the one in charge? Has she done the procedure to herself?” I asked, hoping to be told no.
Lupe anticipated the surge of power that would follow the ritual’s success. Without the restrictions of her human half, she would also fight harder and have fewer limitations. The problem at hand was that she was a Shadowborn. Depending on if she bonded herself to other wolves, she could do more damage now.
“I don’t know. She wanted me to do it, but I told her no. It seemed like too much of a risk because, if me and my wolf didn’t agree, it would do enough damage to our system to kill us. That was the problem she was having, but now she knows if a Shadowborn is used in the process, the walls can become less of a problem, and the wolf can take over with ease.”
So Lupe wasn’t looking for others to bond with. She was looking for a Shadowborn powerful enough to bend the walls with our shadows. I knew that, but the people she was rounding up and going missing told me everything. They were her new recruits who accepted the procedure but still needed a Shadowborn to complete her cause.
She hadn’t come after me yet, though. With all my bonded mates, I would be someone powerful enough to do what she needs. So why hasn’t she come for me?
“Where is she now?”
Teowulf didn’t have an answer. This threw a wrench into everything. If Lupe was out there, that meant she was a problem. Her mate wasn’t holding her back anymore.
So where would she go?
See you at the pack house.
That’s what she said to me. She told me where she was going, and I didn’t pay attention. Too many things had happened since then, and I forgot that she had already told me her destination.
“FUCK!” I screamed and pushed past everyone to get into the building.
I needed to get to my room. There was a call I needed to make to tell me I was right or wrong. While looking up to the moon, I pleaded with the goddess for this not to be happening, that I was wrong about this and Lupe went somewhere else. Everyone called out for me, but I kept going. Running to my dorm, I needed to get to the phone. I practically kicked down the door to get into my room, and I leapt across the room to get to the phone. I quickly dialed my pack’s number, and the ringing kept going. With each round of new rings, my heart plummeted to my stomach.
“Pick up... please pick up...” I looked at the clock, and it wasn’t even ten. My parents would be awake since they felt theneed to check on all the pack members in the house before they felt relaxed enough to go to sleep. “PICK UP!”
Everyone came into the room, and my mates ran to the bed to hover around me. No one on the other line picked up. This couldn’t be happening. I gasped as the sinking feeling of my pack being under attack overwhelmed me.
“She’s at my packhouse,” I said to everyone, and I heard them all gasp.
There had to be another reason my parents didn’t pick up. Lupe would be an idiot to attack them. We were the strongest Shadowborn pack, and we were damn close to being stronger than Silas’s pack. It would be self-destruction to go after my pack.
I slammed the phone down and picked it up to dial again. Someone’s hands were on my shoulders, and I felt their fingers massaging my skin as I waited for someone to pick up. Yet again, it kept ringing. This wasn’t like my parents, so this had to mean she was there. The hope I had that they weren’t by the phone slowly faded away, and I screamed as I slammed the receiver down onto the phone again. It shattered under my blow, but I didn’t care right now.
Lupe was at my pack house, and I needed to stop her.
It would take hours to get to the pack house. There were no trains coming this late, and even a car would take too long. Unless there was a spell to teleport me to my pack, the odds were that I would be too late.
But I had to fucking try.
I pushed my mates aside and went through my drawers to grab clothes. Silas was behind me, his rich scent wrapping around me as he put his arms around my waist.
“We need to make a plan.”
“I need to get clothes on and get to my pack, Silas!”
“I know, but we don’t know what we are walking into. We need to make a plan before we go rushing in there.”
“We don’t have a way of knowing what is happening! No one is picking up. I don’t know what to do other than to get dressed and get to my pack.”
He released me enough to pull the clothes on myself, and I looked at everyone. My mates looked at me with a hardened stare, their emotions in the bond all screaming to protect me and help me through this turmoil. They didn’t know how to do that with me being all snarlyright now. They all tried to touch me, but I shrugged it off. I didn’t want them touching me. I just wanted to get to my pack and do whatever I needed to save my parents. They were the strongest Shadowborn outside of me. Lupe knew I wouldn’t yield and help her, so she was targeting my pack instead.
