The Ugly Luna

CHAPTER 10

ADRIAN

My hand goes out across the mattress before I'm awake and doesn't find her. I run my palm the length of it. Cold.

I open my eyes.

"Ellie."

Nothing.

I'm across the room before I've decided to move. The bathroom is dark and dry, the tub empty. Her scent is in here, but thin, hours old.

The closet next. She isn't in it. I stand frozen in the middle of my room for three long seconds.

She is eight minutes' walk away. She is fine.

I drag on my pants and a shirt. I reach down the bond and get nothing back.

Shit!

I pull the door open hard enough that it hits the wall. Roan, my beta, is standing in the hallway with his fist raised to knock.

He steps back fast, taking me in, the bare feet shoved into boots, whatever is on my face.

"Alpha." His hand drops. "What's wrong?"

"Ellie went to the hospital." I'm already past him. "Sometime in the night. She waited until I was asleep and went."

The color goes out of his face. "Okay." He falls in beside me at the top of the stairs. "Okay. Adrian. Slow down a second."

"No."

"It's just one night. One, Adrian. That's not what it takes. It doesn't happen in one."

"It starts with one."

"Adrian—"

"It has to start somewhere." I shove the outer door open into the cold. "Nobody knows which night was the first one. Not even my mother."

He exhales through his nose.

The path to the hospital cuts along the eastern wall, and neither of us says anything for a hundred yards.

"Have you told her yet?" he asks, and I realize this is the reason he came to my door.

"No."

"Time is running out, Adrian. The full moon is only days away."

"I know." I scrub a hand over my face. "Things have been s**t lately. I just... haven't found the right time to tell her."

"There isn't one."

He says it without any heat.

"There was never going to be a right time for that conversation. There's only before... and after."

His words settle in my chest.

"I'll tell her."

And she'll look at me the way everyone looks at me once they know.

He studies me for a moment, then gives a single nod and lets the subject drop.

We walk the rest of the way in silence.

ELLIE

Somebody is saying my name. I come up out of it in pieces.

My apron is still on. I look down at it, and there's blood dried across the whole front, cracking where it folded over my lap while I slept.

What time is it?

I look up, and Adrian is standing over me.

My stomach drops.

I fell asleep. I never went back.

"Adrian." My voice comes out cracked. I clear it and push up off the stool, my hand going to the cart for balance. "I know what you said, but—"

"Get your things." He's already turning his shoulder toward the door, one hand out toward me, expecting me to be in it. "We're leaving."

I don't move.

"No."

His hand doesn't drop. "Ellie."

"I'm sorry I snuck out. I am." I swallow, my chest tightening. "You woke up to an empty bed, and I can see what that did to you." I draw in a slow breath. "I'm sorry for that part. I'm not sorry for the rest of it."

"The rest of it."

"I was right, Adrian." I hold his gaze, even though my heart is pounding. "They needed me. There are only four healers trying to care for more than thirty injured wolves." I shake my head. "Maybe even more. I lost count."

"I'll send for healers." He says it evenly. "Riverbend owes us. I'll have six here by afternoon and twelve by tomorrow if I ask for them."

"That's good, but it doesn't change that I want to help. Do you know what yesterday was like, Adrian? Knowing I can do something and just sitting there with it. I can't do that."

"You are not working here." His voice comes up, and the room changes temperature. "Not today. Not next week. Not ever."

"You don't get to decide that."

"I'm your Alpha."

"You're my mate."

Silence.

I turn my head. The doorway is full.

Adrian sees it the same second I do. I feel him go rigid.

Neither of us is finished. He puts his hand out again. Not the way he did it before.

I put mine in it. He turns, and I go with him, past Roan, past Millie, through a corridor of people who part for us and don't say a word.

We don't speak in the elevator. His thumb moves once across my knuckles, absent, like he doesn't know he's doing it.

The door to our room clicks shut behind us, and the argument rises right back to where we left it.

"As long as I'm in this pack, I'm going to help." I fold my arms across my chest, refusing to look away. "You can't stop me."

He doesn't answer, which is worse.

I stare at him, yesterday's conversation crashing back into my mind.

"What is it?"

"What?"

"The real reason." My voice softens, but only slightly. "And don't give me that bullshit about it being traumatic. As you can see, I'm fine after working the night shift. So what is it?"

His jaw tightens. "It isn't as simple as you think it is."

"What does that mean?"

He's quiet.

Say it. Whatever it is, just say it.

"Adrian." My voice comes out quieter this time, but no less firm. "What does that mean?"

He closes his eyes for a brief second before answering.

"It means I've seen it." His voice is low, scraped raw. "Up close. For years."

His gaze drops to the floor. When it finally finds me again, there's something haunted in his eyes.

"I know what it costs." He swallows hard. "I know exactly where it leads. And I'm not going to stand by and watch it happen again."

"Adrian..." I shake my head. "I don't understand a word of that."

He doesn't explain.

"You'll stay out of that building," he says. "That's the end of it."

I look at him for a moment, then I turn and walk into the bathroom and shut the door.