Luna Lost

Damien’s Brothers

Damien had been halfway home when he realized he had absolutely no idea what the f**k he was doing.

Finding a mate was supposed to be instinctive. At least, that was what everyone said. The wolf knew. The bond formed. The rest followed naturally, as though generations of wolves had somehow passed down an instruction manual through their blood.

Apparently, Damien’s blood had skipped that part.

His wolf had been annoyingly certain since the moment Luna’s scent hit him in that alley. Damien had tried to reason with it. She was human. She knew nothing about their world. She had watched him heal from an injury no human should have survived, and judging by the questions already forming behind those sharp eyes of hers, she wasn’t going to forget it.

None of that mattered to his wolf.

Mate.

“Yes,” Damien muttered as he walked. “I f*****g know.”

The answer came as a low warmth beneath his ribs, smug enough that Damien seriously considered arguing with himself just for the satisfaction of winning something.

Instead, he changed direction.

He had left Luna because he needed time to think. The flowers and pastry had been an attempt to reassure her without getting close enough to do something stupid, like tell her the truth. He’d promised he would find her again soon.

First, unfortunately, he needed help.

His brothers were going to be unbearable.

Damien heard them before he reached the house. Laughter carried through an open window, followed by something crashing and another explosion of laughter. For one brief, beautiful moment, Damien considered turning around.

His wolf immediately protested.

“Traitor.”

He opened the door.

Conversation stopped.

Three heads turned toward him.

The silence lasted approximately two seconds.

“Well, look who survived.”

Damien closed the door behind him. “I already regret coming here.”

“That’s not new.”

One of his brothers was sprawled across the couch, another had claimed the chair with his feet on the table, and the third stood in the kitchen eating directly from a container he almost certainly hadn’t purchased himself.

Damien looked between them.

He had trusted these men with his life more times than he could count. They had fought beside him, bled beside him and kept secrets that could have gotten any one of them killed.

This might be worse.

“I need your help.”

The container slowly lowered.

His brother on the couch sat upright. “Oh, this is serious.”

“Don’t.”

“You came here voluntarily and admitted you need us.”

“I can still leave.”

“No, no. Please.” He gestured grandly toward the room. “You have our complete and mature attention.”

Damien stared at him.

A grin spread across his face.

“f**k you.”

“There he is.”

Damien walked farther into the room and remained standing. Sitting felt too much like committing to the conversation.

He could feel his wolf moving beneath his skin, restless but attentive.

“I found my mate.”

Nobody moved.

Then all three spoke at once.

“You f*****g what?”

“Bullshit.”

“Who?”

Damien closed his eyes.

This had been a mistake.

His brothers were suddenly everywhere. One abandoned the kitchen. Another leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. The third looked Damien over as though evidence of the mysterious woman might somehow be attached to his clothes.

“When?”

“Where?”

“Does she know?”

“What’s her name?”

“Is she hot?”

Damien’s eyes snapped toward the last one.

His brother lifted both hands. “Important question.”

“She’s human.”

That shut them up.

The humor disappeared so quickly Damien almost wished it hadn’t.

One of them finally leaned back. “Human human?”

Damien gave him a flat look. “How many kinds are there?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. Human.”

The room changed.

They all understood what that meant.

There were wolves who lived comfortably around humans now. Packs had worked for generations to repair the damage between their worlds, and most humans had no idea how close they lived to people who could shift beneath the moon.

That was precisely how everyone preferred it.

Friendship with humans was one thing.

Taking one as a mate was something else entirely.

“Does she know what you are?” one of them asked.

“No.”

“Does she know what she is to you?”

“No.”

“Does she know anything?”

“She knows my name.”

A laugh escaped from the couch. “Strong start.”

Damien glared at him.

“Sorry.”

He wasn’t.

Damien dragged a hand over his face. “She saw me heal.”

That brought another silence.

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“Damien.”

“She found me bleeding. She helped me.”

His brother stared at him. “A human found you injured, brought you somewhere safe and watched you heal?”

“Yes.”

“And somehow you left out that this human is your mate until now?”

“I was getting there.”

“You’re terrible at stories.”

Damien’s jaw tightened. “This is why I didn’t tell you.”

The grin disappeared again.

That was the truth beneath all of it. He hadn’t told them because speaking it aloud made Luna part of this world. His world. It turned the impossible thing he had felt since seeing her into something real.

More importantly, it made her vulnerable.

Damien finally sat down.

“She doesn’t understand any of this,” he said. “She didn’t choose it. She didn’t choose me.”

His wolf bristled at that.

Damien ignored him.

“If I tell her what I am, I change her life. If I don’t tell her, I’m lying to her. If other wolves find out before she understands what’s happening—”

“They won’t touch her.”

The answer came immediately.

Damien looked up.

His brother’s expression had changed completely. No grin. No teasing. Just certainty.

“None of them will,” he repeated.

Another nodded. “She’s yours. That makes her ours.”

Something inside Damien eased.

That was why he had come.

Not because they would have answers. They were just as unmated and clueless as he was. None of them had experienced the thing currently clawing through his chest every time Luna entered his thoughts.

But they were his brothers.

And Luna was human in a world she didn’t know existed.

“I can’t always be with her,” Damien said. “And I’m not following her around like some f*****g lunatic.”

“Romantic.”

“Shut up.”

“So what do you want us to do?”

Damien leaned forward, resting his forearms against his knees. “Help me keep an eye on her. Nothing weird. If you’re nearby, make sure she’s okay. If something feels wrong, call me. If another wolf gets too interested, I want to know.”

One of them raised an eyebrow. “You want three unmated wolves hanging around your mate.”

“I want my brothers helping protect her.”

“Same sentence, different wording.”

Damien pointed at him. “You especially. Stay away from her.”

He laughed.

“I mean it.”

“Relax. I’m not stealing your mate.”

“You couldn’t.”

That earned a chorus of offended noises.

For the first time since Damien walked through the door, he smiled.

One brother stood and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with drinks before dropping one into Damien’s hand.

“Well,” he said, raising his own, “maybe she’ll bring us luck.”

Damien frowned. “What?”

“If your mate is human, maybe ours are too. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places.”

Another brother considered it. “That would explain a lot.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“It might.”

“You two have been looking for mates in bars.”

“Exactly. Wrong places.”

Damien shook his head.

They laughed, and something in the room settled. The problem was still there. Luna was still human. Damien still had no idea how to tell her that the creatures she probably thought belonged in stories were real, or that one of them had somehow known she belonged with him before he had even learned her last name.

But he wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.

Then his wolf stirred.

Damien went still.

It wasn’t a warning. There was no danger in the sensation. It came softly at first, a warmth spreading beneath his ribs before tightening into something deeper.

A pull.

Damien lifted his head.

His brothers noticed immediately.

“What?”

He didn’t answer.

For a moment, he saw Luna exactly as he had left her. Her dark hair, the suspicion in her eyes, the smile she had tried not to give him. He remembered the feel of her fingers against his skin and the way something ancient inside him had gone completely still when she touched him.

Then the pull strengthened.

Her.

His wolf didn’t need to say it.

Damien already knew.

Somewhere across the city, Luna was thinking about him.

A slow smile pulled at his mouth.

“Oh, f**k,” one of his brothers said.

Damien stood.

“What?” another asked. “What just happened?”

“I have to go.”

Three identical expressions of disbelief followed him toward the door.

“You literally just got here.”

“I know.”

“Is it her?”

Damien reached for the handle.

The question stopped him for half a second.

He glanced back at the three men he had just trusted with the most important person in his life, none of them knowing the truth was even more complicated than any of them understood.

Neither did he.

“Yeah,” Damien said.

His brother grinned. “Can’t wait to meet her.”

Damien’s expression hardened.

“No.”

The grin widened.

Damien pointed at all three of them.

“I asked you to look out for her. That does not mean introduce yourselves. It does not mean talk to her. And it definitely does not mean flirt with her.”

Nobody answered.

That concerned him more than laughter would have.

“I mean it.”

“Of course.”

“Absolutely.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Damien stared at them.

Three innocent faces stared back.

He knew those faces.

“Fuck.”

Their laughter followed him out the door.

Behind him, his brothers went back to joking about the impossible situation Damien had gotten himself into. A human mate. Their serious, stubborn best friend completely f****d by fate. Maybe, if they were lucky, hanging around her would lead them toward whoever fate had chosen for them too.

None of them noticed the strange restlessness that remained after Damien left.

None of them questioned why a woman they had never met was suddenly so interesting.

None of them gave it much thought.

They were far too busy deciding which one of them would meet her first.