Alpha's Regret: The Luna He Left Behind novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: By Dawn

Trudy packs the van, Lorna says a warm goodbye, and the road to Hollow Creek eats the van in the rain. Five unpacked wolves close round it and Hoyt Rudd says: Luna. About time.

By midnight, everything I owned fit into six boxes and a duffel bag.

Trudy stacked them by the door of the Luna's suite and counted them twice.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

"Your family lives here. Your whole life is here."

"My whole life is a bakery that opens at four." She taped a box shut and bit the tape off. "You're my whole life. Stop arguing."

I stopped arguing.

The suite had a ramp now, built in the week after the ford.

It was Thane's order, and he had left no note.

I rolled down it for the last time with the duffel in my lap.

Two hunters stood in the hall.

Luther had put them there to make sure I took nothing that belonged to the pack.

They watched Trudy carry out my mother's sewing basket and said nothing.

Lorna was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

She still wore the white gown, and her eyes were red.

She held a small paper bag in both hands.

"Freya," she said. "I couldn't let you go without this."

Inside the bag was my mother's silver locket, which had been in the infirmary drawer since the night I was brought in.

"I kept it safe," she said. "I wanted you to have it before anyone could say it belonged to the Luna."

I took it. It was warm from her hands.

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it.

"He didn't want to do this." She lowered her voice. "My father pushed the elders for a week. Thane isn't himself. I'll look after him for you, I promise."

"I'm not asking you to."

"I know." She tried to smile. "May I check your pulse? One last time. I won't sleep if I don't."

I held out my wrist.

Her fingers closed on it, light and cool.

She held it for longer than she ever had.

"Still hot," she said. "Still fast."

Then she looked up at my face.

"Freya, when the bond cut tonight, did you feel anything? Pain? Anything at all?"

"No," I said. "It didn't hurt."

"Nothing." Her smile came back, slowly. "Good. That's good."

She let go of my wrist and stepped back.

Her hand was shaking a little.

"Take care of her," she said to Trudy, and went up the stairs in her white gown without looking back.

Trudy waited until the stairwell door shut.

"She's the one person in this pack who's been kind to you all month," she said. "So why do I want to throw her down the stairs?"

"Because Thane's up there with her."

"That too."

I watched the top of the stairs for a while.

Thane didn't come down.

I had thought he might stand in the doorway and try to say something, even a lie.

"He's not coming," Trudy said.

"I know."

"You're allowed to say you're hurt."

"I'll say it later," I said. "When I'm not in a hallway full of Luther's men."

We loaded the bakery van by flashlight.

Trudy lifted my chair into the back with a grunt and a curse.

I pulled myself onto the passenger seat with my arms, and it took one try.

Last week it had taken three.

I noticed that and put it aside.

At the gate, at first light, a hunter with a clipboard made me open the duffel.

"Off Redwater land by dawn," he said. "You've got four minutes."

"We're going."

"The creek road washed out last night," he said, almost to himself. "Might want to think about that."

Nobody had told us, and nobody had to.

My mother's cabin stood at Hollow Creek, outside the pack line, forty minutes up a road the valley had forgotten.

It was the only place I had left.

It started to rain at the first bend.

By the second bend, the gravel was gone.

By the third, the van's back wheels sank and spun, and Trudy hit the steering wheel with both palms.

"No," she said. "No, no. Not today."

The engine whined, and the wheels dug deeper.

"Trudy, stop. You're burying it."

She stopped, and the rain drummed on the roof.

Then something moved in the trees on both sides of the road.

Shapes came out of the dark, one, two, five, walking easily through the rain.

Trudy grabbed my arm. "Freya."

The biggest of them came to my window and knocked on the glass with one knuckle.

He was heavyset, with a grey-streaked beard and rain running off the brim of his hat.

He looked at my bare left hand on my lap, and then at my face.

"Luna," he said through the glass. "About time."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend