Slaved By The Moon God

20

I yelled Wesley's name, trying to find him in the battle. I couldn't see him among the Cancer pack shifters falling left and right. I narrowly dodged an Aries wolf using their ram charge on a shifter who used to babysit me. The Cancer wolf fell to the ground, whimpering pitifully. I stuttered to a halt in front of her, trying to see if I could help somehow, and her dark eyes rolled up at me. They pleaded with me, though I wasn't sure if they were telling me to help—or to run. The Aries shifter turned his gaze on me, snarling, and I quickly ducked out of the way as another one joined him. They pounced on the wolf I'd tried to help, and all I could do was turn and run before they got me too. I tripped over a dead wolf, nearly falling, but somehow managed to stay on my feet as tears streamed down my face. Other wolves were trying to flee too, but the Leos were taking them all down. They didn't want any Cancer shifters escaping the m******e.

The Ophiuchus pack didn't even need to start a war. We’d done it ourselves.

Where were the Sun Witches during all of this? The Convergence was supposed to be neutral territory and fighting wasn't allowed, but they weren’t protecting us or doing anything to try to stop this madness. They had betrayed us, just as much as the other packs had.

"Wesley!" I screamed, trying to crane my neck above the fighters. I scanned the crowd for his familiar face, praying and hoping that he had somehow escaped the initial violence. I hadn’t seen him go down, but that didn’t mean anything. It had all happened so fast, I could have missed it.

Then I saw him.

“Wesley!” I yelled again, charging toward him. I had no clue how I made it through that many frenzied shifters without getting a scratch on me, but somehow I reached his side. He looked half-crazed, blood splattered across half of his face—our father’s blood. His hands had turned to claws, but otherwise, he was still in human form, barking out orders to the Cancer shifters fighting around him.

"Ayla!" He let out a relieved sigh, though his face remained grim. "You have to get out of here!"

“I’m not leaving you,” I said, drawing up whatever remained of my strength. “You’re all I have left.”

As I said the words, movement caught at the corner of my eye, drawing my attention toward some approaching shifters. Scorpio wolves, extremely deadly with their pack's signature poison claws and tails. I wouldn’t stand a chance against them without Cancer armor.

Wesley shoved me behind him as the Scorpios moved to surround us. "Go! I'll be right behind you!"

I stumbled back, then turned and ran, narrowly avoiding the s***h of a Scorpio's poison claws. I thought Wesley was right at my heels, but when I glanced behind me, I saw him fighting the shifters, holding them at bay so I could escape. My chest tightened and a ragged cry escaped me as half a dozen Scorpio shifters converged on him at once, burying him under a sea of fur and fangs. I let out another broken scream as he fell beneath them, snarling all the way down.

"No!" I tried to rush forward to save him, even though it would probably mean my death too.

Suddenly pain exploded in my side, and I dropped to my knees, keeling over and landing hard in the dirt. I gasped in a breath and looked up to find Jordan standing over me, a snarl on his face. He’d punched me directly in the stomach, using his shifter strength and my own forward momentum to make it even worse.

“I can’t kill you,” he said, sneering down at me. “But I'm going to really enjoy making you suffer.”

"What?" I managed to gasp out, my head spinning.

He looked at me with disgust, and I noticed his hands were bloody. “The bond. No matter how much I despise you, it’s still there. Mates can’t kill each other.”

"But you rejected me." I'd thought he had broken the mate bond between us, but as I looked up at him, I realized he'd only torn it. Being near him again made the connection strengthen, and the pull I felt toward him returned. Everything in me wanted to stand up and draw him close to me, and my limbs actually trembled with the effort to resist the pull. It was f*****g torture, and I hated that I still wanted him this much. He’d made it abundantly clear that the feeling wasn’t mutual—and I would never be with him after what the Leos had done. "You killed my pack!"

"They're not your pack anymore," Jordan said, his voice cruel as he got that jab in.

"Why?" I asked, gesturing at the chaos around us. "Why do this? Just because I'm your mate?"

He lifted his chin. "We were already planning to take down the Cancer pack at the end of the Convergence. Our mating bond just sped up the timeline."

Rage boiled in me, knowing this had all been planned from the beginning. I tried to stand up, to defend my former pack, but Jordan was quick to knock me down again with his massive strength.

He put his knee on my chest, pinning me down. His face was downright psychotic as he leaned close and whispered in my ear, “I’ll make you suffer for even thinking you could be good enough for me. For believing I’d ever take a half-human mutt as my mate.”

His weight was heavy on my chest, and the words knocked out whatever breath remained in my lungs. Even though I hated him more than I'd hated anyone before, including all the bullies in my pack, the f*****g mating bond still hummed inside me to the tune of mine mine mine.

I tried to shove him off, but he stood in one smooth motion and kicked me in the ribs hard enough that I saw stars. I was no stranger to beatings like this, but it felt like every other person had been holding back until now, pulling their punches and softening their blows.