Embrace My Rogue Luna

Chapter X

Lycus’ POV

I woke to an empty bed. Panic gripped me as I sat up quickly looking around the room only to feel overwhelming relief. There was my mate. Sitting in a chair with a book in her lap. The soft light from the lamp above her bathing her in a warm glow. Glancing to the window I could see the sun was still down. Looking back to her our eyes met.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Her voice was soft and comforting.

“I don’t think so. What time is it?” I asked as I reached for my phone on the bedside table to get the answer myself. 4:48 “Little mate, it’s not even five.”

“I’m not little.”

“Sure, you’re not sweetest.” I enjoyed the slight flush I saw on her face. “So, what has you up so early?” I question as I walk to her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head before sitting in the neighboring armchair.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess it all feels surreal. I kept waking up wondering if all this had really happened, and then I’d realize I was in a bed in human form surrounded by silence and I would drift back to sleep and then a few hours later I was up again. I finally gave up and figured I’d relax with a book until you woke up. Plus, I’m usually up well before dawn anyway.”

“Could you tell me more about it?” I was so anxious to hear about my mate’s life. I wanted to know everything. Why does she get up before dawn? What was a night out in the forest like?

“About my sleeping habits?” She asked with a slight smile on her face.

“Well, yeah” I couldn’t help smiling with her. The question did seem silly. “I want to know you.”

She looked at me for a moment. I always felt like she was weighing me. Like she was deciding how much of herself she could allow me to see.

I guess she decided because she closed the book and sat it on the table next to her.

“Do you need a bookmark?”

“No, I was on page 35.”

“Seriously?” This woman is something else.

“Yep." She shrugged. "I couldn’t always mark the book I was reading so I always check the page before I close a book.”

“Well, that makes sense. So, your sleep?”

“Ahh yes. Well, I usually sleep in wolf form so I can stay warm. Plus, people are way less likely to approach a sleeping wolf. So, as long as I make sure not to sleep near any trigger-happy ranchers fearing for their livestock, I can pretty much sleep through the night.”

“Has that kind of thing really happened?” Baron was anxious at the thought of his mate being shot at, but to my shock she laughed.

“Oh yeah, I remember this one-time Adeline and I got it in our heads that we wanted to see the Grand Canyon.” She kind of bounces pulling her feet up under her bottom, clearly excited by this story. “So, we travel straight through for a couple of days catching sight of road signs whenever we can get close enough to one to keep up with where we were better. We always travel as human when we’re close to populated areas, but when we’re rural it’s faster in wolf form.” I nod, showing I am following along, loving hearing her talk. “So, we haven’t seen anything for ages, and she is running through these empty fields just having a blast in these wildflowers. It was the best day, the weather was amazing, so we decided to stay the night there. We wake up the next morning and realize the entire field is full of cows! We had wandered onto this huge ranch without realizing it. We look around and realize there is a round-up going on. Trucks, ATVs and people all around. They hadn’t seen us yet.”

“What did you do?” I was riveted.

“We ran!” She laughed. “So, Adeline is running for these woods on the other side of the clearing and the ranchers are yelling because at this point they have seen a wolf in the middle of their herd. So, there are ATVs racing after us and Adeline is running with everything in her. Bullets are hitting around us, and we finally make it into the tree line, but all we can think is they might come in after us, so as soon as we hit the trees we shift!” She laughed harder, wiping a tear from her eye.

“You shifted!” I was picturing my petite mate naked in the middle of the woods.

“Well, we figured a naked girl was better than a wolf on a ranch!”

“Where were your clothes?!”

“She left the bag in the middle of the damn cows!”

HEY! I was running for our lives! Tell him that.

She was laughing hard now “Adeline is mad I’m not defending her here. She was trying to save our life.”

I couldn’t help the laugh “You did great Adeline!”

That’s right I did!

I watched my beautiful mate roll her eyes at whatever Adeline had said.

“Yeah, yeah, she did great. In the meantime, everything we owned was in that bag. We couldn’t just leave.”

“So, what happened?!” I was enthralled.

“I walked right out of the woods.” She answered smugly.

“No, you didn’t!” With all those men. This woman is amazing.

“Yes, I did!” She laughs bouncing in her seat “I walked naked with my head high right out of the woods with all those ranchers staring and started towards my bag in the middle of all the cows. That, at this point, were going a little nuts from all the excitement between the wolf and the ranchers.”

“I bet!”

“So, I am walking towards my stuff and this old rancher in Wranglers drives his ATV right in front of me.

And he says ‘honey are you okay?’

I smile at him, my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, and I say ‘Yes, I’m fine why?’

and he says ‘well, you’re naked sweetie.’

I nod seriously. ‘Yes, I did notice that. I just need to get my things.’ And I keep walking through the field. The ranchers staring at each other not sure what to do at this point. So, I get to my bag, pull a sundress out of it and slip it on, pull my bag over my shoulder and start walking back to the woods.”

“And they just watched you leave?!”

“Oh no. They stopped me. They were worried about the crazy girl being eaten by a wolf!”

I was doubled over laughing imagining the people thinking they were saving her from a vicious wolf.

“So then what happened? Did you ever make it to the Grand Canyon?”

“Oh yeah! They drove me there.”

“No way!”

“Yep, I told them this whole story about backpacking across the country and accidentally wandering onto their ranch to camp. And the rancher’s wife kept trying to get me to marry one of her sons.”

We laughed for a few minutes, her telling me more about the family of would-be rescuers.

“So, I almost lost you to a rancher in Arizona?”

Her smile was brightening her whole face as she leaned towards me. “Oh, yeah. It was a really close call.” And she kissed my lips before leaning back in her chair.

I smiled at her forcing myself to keep control and just enjoy this time getting to know my mate.

“So how was the Grand Canyon?”

She sighed a wistful smile on her lips “Exquisite.”

“I’ve never been.” I admitted with a shrug. “Most of my life has been spent here on the pack or traveling to other packs' for pack related business.”

“Then we’ll have to go sometime.”

I really liked the sound of that. Going on a trip with just me and my mate. I hope we really can one day.

“So, what was it like before?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“Before what?”

“Before Adeline?”

Her mood dampened a bit. “Ahh. Yes, that was different. I already mentioned I kept to human towns.”

I nodded showing I remembered. “Why was that anyway?”

“Well, it’s not like you can just join a pack without people noticing.”

“That’s true. But you probably would have been taken in if you had gone to a pack.”

“Maybe, but the only way that would have happened would be if I told them who I was. Otherwise, I would just seem like another unworthy rogue.”

“Unworthy?” I didn’t like that word being associated with her.

“Yes, someone not pack worthy. So, I would have had to tell them who I was and then there was the chance they would send me back, and I would die before I went back there.”

I couldn’t control Baron’s whine that slipped out.

She reached out, taking my hand. “I’m sorry Baron. I didn’t mean to upset you like that.”

I squeezed her hand. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Hey look,” I nodded to the window. “The sun is starting to come up. Any chance Adeline wants to go for a run?”

The words were barely out of my mouth before she was jumping up and pulling me towards the door.

“Ha I take that as a yes then?”

“Let’s go! Let’s go!”

We ran out of the door not bothering to change clothes, put on shoes or anything we just ran out the door laughing as we raced down the stairs. She made it out the door first, but then she had to follow me to the room off the side of the house where we dropped our clothes before shifting and taking off into the woods.