The Blue Moon Luna

[Leah’s P.O.V.] – Washington State ‘RUN!’ It’s the only word I can hear, ‘RUN!’ By some stroke of luck, whoever has been holding me captive has left my shackles loose. I managed to get my right hand out, but my left is stuck. Time is ticking down. Knowing my captors, I only have a few seconds to escape. I desperately look around the room. S***, there is nothing close by that can help me. I grunt out loud in frustration. “Shut up! Do you want them to come down here!” another female voice scolds me in the dark. God how I hate this room. It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s damp. I know there are other women down here with me, but none of them ever speak. The only time I hear them is at night when they cry, or worse when they’re taken away and they scream. ‘RUN’ I hear again. What is that? I look down at the shackle around my left wrist again. I know what I need to do. I feel a strength filling me that I never knew I had. I’ve always been afraid of pain. I left my foster family because of the pain they inflicted upon me, and now I end up here, feeling more pain than I have ever felt in my life. If it wasn’t for the voice, I would have given up completely. I would have given myself to the darkness. A new spirit of courage overtakes me. A feeling of hope reignites my soul. I haven’t felt hopeful in such a long time. I send up a prayer before doing what I know needs to be done. I haven’t prayed since the night my parents left me. I prayed and prayed, and they died anyway. I figured, what was the use of prayer? What good did it ever do me? I was alone. Alone until the voice found me. I take one last look down at my hand, then I jerk it hard against the shackles. A horrendous bone-crunching echoes around the stone room. I bite down so hard on my lip that I can taste the saltiness of blood. Screaming into my already bleeding lip, I jerk my hand again. The pain is unimaginable, but I’m free. I’m actually free. I start stumbling around in the dark. I think I remember where the door is. I’ve seen it when they take the other girls away. Just in blackness, I’m disorientated. What direction was that door in? Suddenly, a door creeks, then a slit of light illuminates my path to freedom. “Quiet!” an authoritative order comes from the light, then it disappears as quickly as it came. That voice used to make me afraid, but now it stirs something in me. A passion, a desire, a hatred. “Go,” a weak voice tells me. This time I know it’s a voice in my head. It’s the small girl I have laid beside for months, at least I think months. Who knows in this place? “Go,” she repeats. I wish I could take her with me, she’s so young. Shaking off the guilt, I make my way to where the light appeared. I have to get out. With any luck, they won’t have locked the door. We are shackled, so there’s no need. I’ve never heard the jangle of keys or the click of a lock opening. When I finally climb the steps, my knees redraw from scraping them against the stone, I find the door is in fact unlocked. It’s the first stroke of luck I’ve had since I was thirteen. I don’t remember a single good thing happening to me, not since after the death of my parents.   I emerge into the light. I’m in a... house, a grand house. It looks so normal in here, except that it’s huge. One could never imagine the horrors that lay underneath it. Why is there no one around? It’s so quiet here. Thankfully, I’m wearing shoes so I can tip-toe quietly across the marble floor and out the door. I don’t even bother to close it. The minute I feel the biting cold of the night air, and smell that fresh air smell, I take off running. As soon as I reach the woods, I’m not so thankful I don’t have shoes on anymore. Soon my feet are an even bloodier mess than my knees. I hear howls in the dark woods around me, it’s a full moon. I can’t tell you why, but I feel I pull toward it. Heavy thuds vibrate the ground beneath my feet. It has to be my mind playing tricks on me. There is nothing alive that powerful. Is there? “RUN!” that voice again. It reverberates in my head. I speed up. I have no idea where I’m going, I’m just hoping and praying that I’m running the right way. After running full frontal into tree trunks and scraping myself on countless branches, I finally see lights in the distance. Orange lights, highway lights. All I need to do is get to the highway, and then if I die, I die free. - [Christian’s P.O.V.] – Washington State Another useful f*****g meeting with another useless Alpha. I shouldn’t have to regain the trust of these wolves. They didn’t experience what I did. I saw my mother die in front of me. Torn apart like she was nothing. Now, they want me to prove that I’m fit to be Alpha. I was already the Alpha, so what if I lost my head for a few months? Who wouldn’t? “STOP!” my wolf, Noah, shouts in my head. I slam on the breaks. In this rain, my car skids all over the road. I’m close to aquaplaning. “What the f***?” I ask him, consumed with anger yet breathless from the sudden action that took over my body. “Mate,” my wolf whines. “Mate? We don’t have a mate.” I question him. For some reason, he’s pacing back and forth in my mind. Rolling down the window, I inhale deeply. I can’t smell anything but fresh rain. Goddess, I love the smell of fresh rain. “Sorry bud, I think your instincts were wrong,” I tell my wolf. “Mate is out there!” Noah insists. I step out into the heavy downpour. Even if my mate was out here, I have a fat chance of detecting her scent in this weather. To appease my wolf, I wander around a little more, getting close to the edge of the forest that lines the highway. As much as I didn’t believe my wolf, I’m also a little bitter. I’ve wanted my mate for years now. A true Alpha needs a Luna. That’s what my parents taught me. No, not just taught me, showed me, every single day. The strength of their love kept our small pack strong, and above all else, loyal. My father did an incredible job rebuilding our pack. A job he could not have done without my mother by his side. “Noah, I’m really sorry, but I...” just as I’m about to turn back to my car, the most addictively sweet yet fresh scent reaches me. “Mate,” my wolf whines again. She has to be close. Why isn’t she calling out for me? The smell of fresh pine and violets draws me toward the rain ditch behind the guard rail. What I find takes me completely off guard. A huddled mass of thin white silk and white-blonde hair crumpled in the dirt. This is her. This has to be her. She’s absolutely tiny. A tiny sliver of moonlight in my darkening world. I reach out to touch her. As soon as my hand touches her shoulder, she jumps back as if electricity has just shot through her.  “Don’t hurt me!” she exclaims so weakly yet so fiercely at the same time. Who is this little creature? She’s like a little broken dove, begging for someone to save her, yet so terrified someone will hurt her. “Little dove,” the term of endearment escapes me before I realize it. S***, she’s going to think I’m an idiot.” She moves a sheet of hair from her face, and I am struck with the most stunning clear blue eyes. Wide in terror, yet so beautiful. My wolf is going crazy, yelling at me to mark her here and now. I shake him out of my mind. My instincts are telling me something I can’t quite read. Taking a deep breath, I inhale more of her scent. It’s there, buried under her intoxicating smell, she’s human. I was mated to a human. Her eyes meet mine again, and a look of understanding passes between us. “I won’t hurt you,” I blurt out. “I know. I don’t know why, but I trust you.”