The Rare and Stolen Luna

Chapter 1: Stay Down

Kinsley's POV

It's not worth fighting him, I remind myself. Ace Whitfield is a devil, a ruthless killer, and the widely hated Rogue Prince.

He's also been my captor for as far back as I can recall.

His anger is unmatched by anything I've ever seen out of the other rogues. They're not a pack, and Ace is not an Alpha, but somehow they mimic that hierarchy with a similar reign.

The Rogue Prince calls the shots, he decides when and who to attack, and he deals out punishment in the makeshift camp in the dark woods when he sees fit.

Most of the time that involves me, even though I haven't spoken in years, trying to be as demure as possible when he is throwing his tantrum. It's one of those nights, same as many others, where he is mad at the world and focusing that angst on me.

He tears a tree in half, splitting it like the lighting in the gray, furious storm overhead. I tuck myself into a dip near the largest oak tree, sinking into the hole between roots while his black, rampaging wolf unleashes its rage on everyone and everything in his way.

He swivels suddenly, charging to stand over me as I cower into the wet, muddy ground, his teeth sharp and mere inches from my face. He could snap my neck in half at this moment and it wouldn't be hard for him to do it.

I suck in a breath, sobbing silently at the sight of him so mad.

When he shifts back, he struggles to maintain his breathing, heaving in and out with more labor than the last straining inhale.

His eyes are black as night, the same as his slick, wet hair.

“You little thief!" He lashes forward his palm finding my pale cheek in an abrupt slap. “You think you can take food from my camp without permission? You think you deserve that meal you stole?"

He screams again, sounding more like a howl as it carries through the darkest corners of the forest.

If I had the guts, I would tell him it wasn't a meal. It was hardly the remnant of cooked meat on a bone thrown aside. I've lived off scraps for years, for the only life I can ever remember, and after five days without food, I had become desperate.

Ace doesn't care. In his eyes it was mutiny. It was a movement when he demanded me to be stagnant, to be still, and to deal with my hunger until he felt it was time to throw me a table scrap.

“Come here," he snarls, lifting me onto my knees by a fist in my messy, muddy hair.

Grabbing a rusted set of chains from another rogue, he clips them over my wrists and forces a spike down into the soft dirt to keep them before me. My restricted movement is challenging, and I fight to pull the spike from the silky mud but it's met with a harsh, second slap.

“Stay down, mutt," Ace snarls. “I'm going on a hunt. If you move from this spot before I get back to camp, you'll wish you had the good sense to be still."

There's a moment of peace before the pandemonium ensues once Ace leaves.

There's a bonfire, cheering, and the drinking of alcohol. I can smell it from here but I've never been blessed with the opportunity to try any. I don't even know if I would like to have alcohol after watching how it turns these unruly rogues into menacing creatures, prowling for a fight.

It doesn't take long for a fight to form, either.

“She's asleep," a rogue jeers in a voice I don't recognize. He must be new. “The Rogue Prince left his little pet outside in the cold."

“He always leaves her out here, until she can reach her wolf."

“A wolfless pet? Sounds like a waste of resources."

“It is," another snarls, leaning down close to my face. His hot breath brushes my bruised cheek. He presses his knuckles against my jaw; a threat. I recognize them well. “But he keeps her around all the same."

“What for?"

Someone reaches for the hem of my dress, taunting me in my false stupor of sleep. “I can only imagine what he would want with this dirty, orphaned rogue. It's a burden just to keep her alive."

“Maybe she's really good in bed," the new wolf mocks.

I tense at his words, my legs instinctively curling into my stomach. Someone yanks at the chains on my wrists and they all laugh when it unfurls my position on the ground. I stare up at the group, each of them drunk and dangerous in their own ways.

Someone swings a kick forward, his boot landing straight into my cheek.

Don't scream, I remind myself. Don't make a sound.

The blood pools down my chin, my lip cut from the brunt force of the kick. They want a reaction, anything to tell Ace that would incite trouble for me later. Even a moderate squeal would send him into a fury and I have no energy left to bounce back from one of those.

I play dead or passed out, whatever works until they turn their focus elsewhere.

Peering through my puffy, dry eyes, I watch them all shift into their wolven forms, paws pouncing across the ground, scattering like lost ants. I back myself up against the oak tree, pulling on the chains that attach to the spike in the ground. I can't move more than a few inches but anything helps, the camp is in disarray.

Wolves descend from the mountains, laying waste to the rogues in camp. There's blood and flesh and death; more death than I am accustomed to. I try to hide under the leaves and various sticks at the base of the tree but a large pack wolf skids to a stop just a few paces in front of me.

He's huge, bigger than any rogue I've ever seen before, with eyes so cold and blue that a chill is sent down my spine. The rogues are meticulously scattered through the woods or dead by this point and the pack wolf is hardly interested in that aspect, his coat a beautiful shade of amber.

He paces to stand over me, his snout tipping down until his cold nose brushes my cheek. I close my eyes and steady my breathing, waiting for death, knowing these pack wolves are here to even the score with the rogues and I am just another casualty.

The cold nose turns into a warm hand, fingertips running down the recently made mark on my cheek before trailing up over my eyelids and then back down to my soft, quivering lips.

“Alpha, the rogues have all been killed," someone nearby barks. “Did we miss one?"

“This one isn't meant to die," the stranger in front of me says.

I see his cold eyes in this form, his face blushing pink and his hair brushed back to not trail down against his forehead. He touches my cheek more, his thumb running rhythmic swipes under the bruise I know is blossoming there.

“What do you suggest we do with her?"

The man shakes his head, seemingly perplexed. “She's my mate. She's coming home."