Blood Moon

Chapter 04

Chapter 04

Elouise’s POV

It’s Tuesday night. Liz’s leather jacket hangs on the back of my chair, her boots lay on their sides under my bed. Her talk with Edward didn’t end well apparently.

She practically fell into my room, ready to break the door down if it was locked. Jack caught her before she broke her nose against my drawers, and she threw him across the room. Then she stormed up to me and screamed how much she hated Edward.

It took half an hour of screaming, shouting and restraining before she calmed down enough to tell us what had made her so angry. He hadn’t rejected her, which is what my first thought was, and he didn’t hurt her which is what Jack asked.

No, Edward already had a girlfriend and pretended not to notice the bond so Liz would doubt herself. Coward.

“She’s part of his old pack!” Liz had screamed at us, flaying her arms out. “Y’know, the pack that treated him like an outsider.”

What came out of her mouth next were words so foul I’m not sure if she made them up or not.

“Maybe she was the only one who was nice to him,” I suggested which only earned me a venomous glare.

She took deep breaths at Jack’s command. Her chest rising and falling as her eyes returned to their normal green.

Edward’s eyes were green too, but whilst Liz’s eyes were bright and seemed to glow in her rage, Edward’s eyes looked washed out as if he had cried away their colour. What his eyes lacked in vibrancy; his hair made up in various shades of ginger. His skin was pale, moonlike compared to the bronze of Liz, and his nose was crooked to one side. He had large lips between his sunken cheeks.

Another hour later, Liz was inanimate on the bed, besting in her anger induced tranquillity.

“I can’t believe you went to her for advice about mates,” Jack shook his head. He looked at Liz who had been staring at the ceiling for ten minutes. “Of all people, why would you go to Ellie?”

He wasn’t wrong. In fact, I thought the same thing when Liz came into the shop last night to tell me about Edward.

“No offence.”

I shake my head. “None taken.”

“You were right all along,” she finally said. Jack and I perked, neither of us knew who she was talking to until she sat up and crossed her legs. Her black hair covered her face. It stuck to her lipstick and covered her eyes, hanging down to her elbows. Jack reached over with a finger to move it out of her face. “Mates suck.”

I swallowed. Jack, being the only one of us who had found his mate, disagreed. He loved the idea, loved the feeling of being with his mate and knowing nothing but death would separate them.

Even when death did separate them, he didn’t have a single negative thought about mates.

“He might come around,” I admitted. 

Jack’s eyes narrowed at me, trying to tell me that lying to Liz to wouldn’t help her. But I wasn’t lying. Liz seemed to not like what I was saying anyway.

“He didn’t reject you, that’s a good sign.”

She looked away from me and took another drink from the bottle. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Jack yawned and reached to mess his hair. I used to hate him. When Amelia brought him to the pack and claimed that he was her mate, I didn’t think he knew the seriousness of the word. My father didn’t like the idea of a human being part of the pack either; he thought Jack could be a hunter trying to infiltrate us and warned me to be cautious around him.

Jack wanted to be a part of her life so bad he would change himself to be with her. I pulled him aside, warned him of what it would be like and how there was no going back. He didn’t care. He was so deeply in love with my best friend that it didn’t matter how much pain turning him would cause as long as he could spend the rest of his life with her.

And she was taken from him.

Since her death, he wasn’t the doe eyed love-struck puppy anymore. He was a wolf. Wild, rugged, defined. So many people in the pack wanted him—myself included at one point. And during that moment, when I had my little crush, he wanted me too.

We laugh about it now. How stupid we were thinking it would work without one of us wanting to kill the other. Our wolves hated us for it.

“We could burn his clothes.” Jack and I stare at her with wide eyes. “What? It’s not like he has anything else we can set on fire.”

Jack fell back on the bed, clutching his stomach laughing.

I intervened before he got on board and it became impossible to talk them out of it.

“You’d only make him run away from the pack and become a rogue. I don’t think he could survive as a rogue, do you?”

She considered it. Scrawny little Edward who was an omega in his last pack becoming a savage rogue. It wasn’t likely.

Jack’s phone lit up with a message. I had a second to see who it was from before he picked it up.

“Can we talk about something else?” Liz asked.

Just as I was about to change the subject, Jack stepped in for me. He tucked his phone into his back pocket with a grin. “Lupine Pack,” he said.

I looked at Liz for some type of confirmation, but she looked just as confused as I did.

“What about them?” I dragged out.

Jack still wore that ridiculous grin. “Lucas’ surname is Lupine.”

I stayed silent.

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head, tapping Liz on the nose which earned him a glare. “Not in the slightest. He’s the alpha of the Lupine Pack.”

The Lupine Pack were legendary. They were descendants of the first wolf, the longest living pack to ever exist, never failing to produce a son that could carry the powers of the Moon Goddess.

“How do you know?” Liz asked.

My wolf hummed something in my mind, and I agreed. She had been silent these days, only giving me a sarcastic comment when I didn’t need it and going back into hiding. I used to worry when she did it but now, I expect it whenever the moon is full.

They say that’s when the dead come to speak to their loved ones in their dreams. Then I understood why she hid. Because if I could, I would disappear during that time too.

“I have my sources.”

I looked outside my window. It would be a full moon in less than a week. They’ve never visited me, and it’s unlikely that they will, but my stomach turned at the thought of seeing my family.

It would be a pleasure, something I should be excited for and cherish, and I would if they didn’t speak to me. Nothing would prepare me enough to hear what they think of me taking over the pack. If they thought I had failed them… nothing would break me more.

“Ellie, are you okay?” Jack gripped my arm. When he saw what I was looking at, his thumb made soothing circles against my skin.

“Care to share your sources?” I ask instead.

His eyes darkened to a near black. Normally they had too many shades of brown in them to pinpoint one colour. There were rings of chocolate and dry dirt, flecks of autumn leaves and coffee backed with the colour of wet bark.

I refused to blink until he got the message.  He backed away with a sigh, taking his hand with him.

My voice didn’t sound like mine as I spoke. “We’re going to the gala.” I stared at my bedsheets. Silver silk freshly washed and now crumpled with the three of us on top of it. “You’re coming with me.”

“She won’t say what changed her mind, before you ask,” Liz said through a yawn. She shifted off the bed, leaving Jack and I to stare at her as she collects her things.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

She brushed her hair behind her ear as she looked at him. “I’m tired and we’re out of alcohol.”

Every bottle we bought lay empty on my floor, separated by who drank what. Liz’s pile was twice the size of mine. Jack’s pile was the smallest

I waited until she had reached the end of the corridor before I turned to Jack. “Go after her, make sure she doesn’t break anything.”

Liz was the type of person you needed to keep an eye on. She was just as deadly in her human form as she was as her wolf, if she was angry or upset, it was certain death to be on the opposite side of her.

“The Gala…”

“We’ll talk about it another time.”

He hesitated but got up to leave anyway. I admired that about Jack, he rarely pushed, and he knew where he was needed most.

Once he had left, I tumbled from my bed, wobbly from the alcohol, in search of my bag. It wasn’t under my desk or next to my coat that had been thrown in the corner of the room. All that remained under my bed was a memories box that I had pushed away into the farthest corner so that I couldn’t reach it.

I tried to think where I put my bag when I came back from work. My shoes are all lined neatly against the wall, above them hung every coat that had to wait until winter to be worn. Next to them, in the place where I always put it, was my bag.

I slapped myself on the forehead. Of course it’s in its designated spot. I found my father’s notebook inside, underneath my purse, keys and water bottle.

On the first page, my father had written about our pack. He listed all of the alphas before himself, even adding my brother’s name after his, then he wrote how the pack was founded and all through its history. The Blood Moon pack’s rise to victory, becoming one of the most feared packs in the country under his father’s leadership and continuing that growth under his own.

He died before he could write about its downfall. There was a blank page waiting for more ink to tell our story, but it felt shameful to write what happened to us. To put into words how his beta killed him and his wife and son… it didn’t need to be written. I have it scared in my mind. 

I sucked in a breath and flipped the page. The Lupine pack was next.

My father had a lot to say about them.