SOLD TO THE RUTHLESS ALPHA:The White Wolf's Price

Chapter 7: Luna

I woke up human.

Sunlight was in my eyes. Soft sheets. Not water. Not marble. A bed so big I was lost in it.

I sat up too fast. White fur was gone. My hands were hands again, small, with normal nails. But the crescent mark on my wrist was still there, silver, and the moonstone necklace was still glowing faintly on my chest.

And I was wearing a huge black shirt. Not mine. Kade's. It smelled like him and it fell to my knees.

"Ashira!"

Fred was asleep in a chair next to the bed, his head on the mattress. He jolted awake, his hair messy.

"You're awake! You — last night — you turned into a —" He waved his hands, unable to say wolf. "A big dog! A very big, very beautiful white dog!"

I touched my face. "I shifted back?"

"Yeah, after you two howled like crazy on the balcony. All the wolves downstairs went insane. Then you fainted. Kade carried you back in as a girl again. He... he put his shirt on you. He didn't look, I swear, I watched him. He closed his eyes."

My cheeks burned. "Where is he?"

Fred pointed at the balcony door. It was open a crack.

Kade stood outside, shirtless again, on the phone, his back to us. His black tattoos covered his whole back — a huge black wolf with white eyes. His sweatpants hung low.

He was speaking in a low, angry Alpha voice.

"I don't care if her father is crying. He sold her mother’s house. He let his wife put silver on a pup. He doesn't get to see her until I say so... No, Diana Thompson and Kiara are banned from all pack lands. If they step on Blackwood property, shoot them... Yes, the Thompson mansion is mine now. Sell it."

Fred and I stared at each other.

Kade hung up and turned. His golden eyes found me instantly, even through the crack in the door. He ended the call and walked in.

He stopped two feet from the bed, like he was afraid to come closer.

"How do you feel?" he asked, his voice that slow, deep one again.

"Sore," I whispered. "Like I ran for ten hours."

"That's normal for first shift." His eyes dropped to my legs under his shirt, then quickly back up to my face. He clenched his jaw.

Fred stood up. "Okay, I'm going to... go find food. Human food. With no wolf in it."

He ran out fast, closing the door.

Now we were alone.

Kade knelt again, like last night. Same position. So his eyes were level with mine.

"You did perfect," he said softly. "You are the first white wolf to shift in twenty-five years. My aunt — your mother — would be so proud."

I looked down at his shirt. "You dressed me?"

"Elena did. I told her to." He lied. His ears turned slightly red. Alphas don't blush, but he did.

I pulled the shirt tighter around me. "Why... why did you buy me, Kade? Really. If you knew I was your mate since I was thirteen, why didn't you come earlier? Why pay my stepmother?"

His face went cold. Ruthless Alpha again.

"Because I needed a legal reason to take you," he said honestly. "Your stepmother is human. Human law says you are eighteen, you can be married for debt. If I just took you, your father could call the human police, and the human police would bring the werewolf council, and the council hates white wolves. They think you are cursed. They would have killed you as a pup."

He reached out, slowly, and touched the moonstone. His fingers were warm.

"So I let her sell you. I gave her money she would waste. And now human law says you belong to me. Pack law says you are my Luna. No one can take you from me. Not council, not police, not your family."

I shivered. Not from fear. From how possessive he sounded.

"So I am really... yours?"

"Yes."

"And you are... mine?"

His gold eyes flared. He leaned forward, forehead almost touching mine again.

"I have been yours since I was eighteen and I smelled rain and wildflowers in a human schoolyard and didn't know it was a little girl in a mop uniform," he whispered. "I have not touched another woman since that day. I have not looked. I built this east wing for you. I kept your mother's necklace in my safe for ten years. So yes, Ashira Thompson, I am yours. If you want me."

If I want him?

No one ever asked me what I wanted.

My wolf pushed inside — not painful now, just soft, wagging her tail for him.

I wanted to ask, what does being mates mean? Does it mean I have to... sleep with you? Does it mean I have to be Luna?

But what came out was smaller, more honest.

"Can I stay with Fred for a little while? I don't know how to be a Luna. I only know how to scrub floors and hide."

Kade closed his eyes like I had hurt him, then opened them, gentle again.

"You can stay with Fred forever if you want. You can scrub floors if you want, though Elena will cry. You can do anything you want. You are Luna. That means this whole mountain listens to you, not the other way around."

He stood up and walked to the dresser. He picked up a small black card and placed it on the bed next to me.

"Unlimited. Buy what you want. Eat in any dining room you want. No one will ever make you pay to sit down again."

My eyes filled with tears again. Stupid tears. I was always crying now.

He saw them and panicked. "Don't — don't cry —"

"I have never had money before," I whispered, touching the card. "Kiara said I couldn't sit in the dining room because I had no money. Now I have a black card."

Kade stared at me, then at the card, then back at me, and his fists clenched.

"I will kill her," he said calmly.

"No! Don't!"

He took a deep breath, forced his hands to relax.

"Okay. I won't kill her. Today."

He turned to leave, giving me space, but at the door he stopped.

"Ashira."

I looked up.

"Tonight there is a pack dinner. All the pack will be there to meet their new Luna. You don't have to come. But if you do..." He looked at his shirt on me, at my bare legs, and his voice got rough. "Wear something warm. Because if you come downstairs in that shirt, I will not be able to act like an Alpha who has not touched his mate."

He left.

I sat in his huge bed, in his huge shirt, holding his unlimited black card, with a glowing moonstone on my chest and a silver mark on my wrist, listening to the mountain wolves still howling my name downstairs, softly, like a lullaby for their white Luna.

And for the first time since I was eight years old, I didn't feel like the price.