The Luna's Revenge

Seven

Jake’s POV

Well that explained a lot. Her first mate was dead, and I’m over here being an asshole like he’s somehow intruding on our relationship. I was going to kill Connor for the SECOND misunderstanding of the day that almost cost me my mate.

“Lexi… I don’t even know where to begin,” I rubbed my neck nervously. It was a habit. I couldn’t even look her in the eye right now.

“Honestly, it’s okay. I thought you were one of those annoying men who can’t stand the thought of being with a mate who isn’t a virgin. So I guess we both assumed the worst.” Lexi offered me her hand. “Truce?”

“Yes, Princess. But I will make up for this extremely awful first impression some day.” I wrapped my arms tighter around her. “So… you’re really all mine?”

She giggled, and Hunter, who had miraculously recovered and was accusing ME of being an i***t despite believing all the same bullshit, practically purred in my head.

“All yours! If your Beta deigns to let me out of this room, that is,” Lexi smirked. I could see that her and Cam would need to warm up to each other.

I scooped her up, pausing to grab her bag on our way out the door. Thank the Goddess I had a forgiving and understanding mate.

“I think I can break you out; I know the guy in charge,” I whispered conspiratorially.

She giggled again. I wanted to take her straight to my room and mate and mark her immediately, but, I knew I had Cam to attend to as well as some other Alpha business. So instead, I carried her to a guest room and mindlinked one of our Omega staff members to assist.

“Baby, I have some work to do, but one of the house workers, Leah, will get you settled in here. Leah is extremely sweet and she’ll get you anything you want. And if you need me, just let her know and she’ll link me, okay?”

She nodded her head and gave me a brilliant smile. “Thank you, Alpha. I’ll see you soon?”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” I gave her a quick kiss, but left before I got any further distracted.

Cam had already linked me to let me know he was waiting in my office. It was time to find out what he wanted.

Cameron’s POV

I paced back and forth in front of Jake’s desk, waiting impatiently for him to get rid of that girl and meet me.

He had acted like a lovesick puppy around her, which was completely ridiculous. We called her Alpha and he denied she was a pack member… and just moments after she speaks to our witch, this Alpha mysteriously recalls her AND she was sending off mate vibes to Jake? Call me a skeptic, but I think that’s unlikely.

I love Jake, and he’s a brilliant Alpha, but my best friend is a romantic softy at heart. Without someone to look out for him, he would fall for all sorts of schemes. He thought I was too cautious. I thought he was too trusting. With that in mind, I asked Murphy to come to the office, too. Murph could usually balance us out.

When Jake walked in half an hour later, smelling like that girl, I was still pacing. Murphy was sitting slouched down on one of the guest chairs, his legs propped up on Jake’s desk and crossed at the ankles. He was wearing jeans and a navy hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, and he had pulled the hood down over his eyes so he could nap.

I slapped the desk with my palms, trying to startle him awake, but he just tilted his head up a fraction of a degree and opened one eye. “Hey, hey, I’m just here to referee, my friend. I don’t need to fully wake up until someone’s claws come out.”

“Well?” I asked Jake. He was looking at me warily, like I was the one acting irrationally. “What did the girl have to say?”

“The ‘girl’ is named Lexi,” he used air quotes, mocking me. “And she is my mate.”

Before I could get another word in, Murphy launched himself out of the chair and tackled Jake, slamming him into the wall. “YEAH MAN! Congratulations!”

The two of them were sporting big grins and high fiving like they had just won the Super Bowl. But I had information that would make Murphy understand my side of things.

“Murph, what Jake isn’t mentioning is that Lexi met with Estelle just a few minutes before he walked into the room,” I announced triumphantly.

“Oh, really? So does Lexi not like witches being in the pack? Or is Estelle her mate also? Or… wait! Did Estelle find out you met your mate before we did??” He looked genuinely perturbed by this idea. Murphy took being best friends very seriously.

“No, oh my god. You’re both not getting it! Lexi met with a witch, and then Jake felt the mate bond.” I practically growled out. “I think she used magic on him to get out of trouble.”

Murphy chuckled. “Aw, come on, Cam, you don’t have to make s**t up. We’ll all still be friends even if Jake has his one true love and we don’t. Look on the bright side, now he can always be the DD for she-wolf hunting nights.”

I scowled. This was infuriating! Why didn’t anyone see the obvious?

“Cam,” Jake looked thoughtful. “Why would Estelle help a random wolf to curse me, when she’s my pack member?”

“Why would a witch do anything? I don’t know!”

“I will not put up with that kind of talk here and you know it. What is wrong with you today?”

I sighed. There was nothing inherently wrong with witches, even if they couldn’t be trusted. “I’m just saying, most people can be bought for a price. You know that.”

Jake looked like I had slapped him. Honestly, that would have been kinder. I knew the effect those words would have.

“Get the f**k out, Cam. Don’t talk to me until I send for you.”

His eyes had gone black with fury and I could see him shaking as he tried to hold Hunter back. I had certainly pushed it too far.

“Cam, GO,” Murphy yelled at me, glaring, as he held Jake back. I slammed the door behind me as I stormed out.

As soon as I crossed the threshold of the packhouse, I shifted into my wolf. Cooper shook out his shaggy grey fur as he bolted toward the forest, both of us wanting to run and run to forget what I had just done. I should not have said that. Those were memories we all buried deep, everyone in the pack, but especially Jake. Coop threw his big head back, letting out a long, mournful howl, for Jake, and for the former Luna and her daughter.

Murphy’s POV

Cam and I were going to fight when he got back. First he threw out all these wild accusations on what should have been the best day of Jake’s life, then he invoked the biggest tragedy of our pack history as a casual insult, and lastly, he left me to clean up the pieces. I was furious. Jax wanted to claw Cooper to shreds, but I had a feeling Cooper was probably arguing with his human on this one and not to blame.

Meanwhile, Jake had just punched a hole in his office wall and smashed a coffee table into splinters, so things were going just swimmingly here.

Not how I like to start my Mondays, but okay. Thanks a lot, Cam!

“Hey, hey, buddy. Can I meet your mate?” I said it gently, hoping he’d calm down.

Jake seemed to realize I was in the room for the first time in a while. He closed his eyes and evened out his breathing.

“Why would he say that, Murph?” His voice was pained. “He knows I think about it every day. How could he compare my mate to them?”

I shook my head. “I think he’s probably regretting it. Jax and I will set him straight, don’t you worry.”

I hadn’t more then finished the sentence before we heard a sad, lengthy howl echoing from the forest that we both recognized as Cooper. I punched Jake’s arm lightly. “See, man? What’d I tell you? Your beta’s soft, he doesn’t have the balls to be that hurtful on purpose. He’s just an idiot.”

Jake shook his head. “I’m still mad.”

“And you deserve to be mad. Sounds like someone should be running double patrols as punishment. May I offer all of my overnight shifts to be reassigned to him, my good Alpha? Perhaps just, all of my shifts, indefinitely?” I bowed down to him dramatically.

That at least got him to crack a smile. “Come on, come meet Lexi. I need her to see I have not entirely terrible taste in friends.”

As we headed out of the Alpha suite and down to the guest floor, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Cam would come back ready to befriend the Luna, or determined to undermine her.

Jake’s POV

Hunter was raging in my head, furious. Betrayal. Anger. Pain. He roared, threatening to come forward. I let him, distantly hearing the sounds of furniture breaking and considering how that would’ve been my Beta’s face had Murphy not intervened.

I mentally retreated into a corner of my mind, letting myself be numb while my wolf rampaged. Murph had seen me in this state before, he’d keep the rest of the pack safe. I just needed a moment. Just a moment.

*Flashback*

“Dad, Sarah wants to come with us,” I whined. “Tell her this is for Alphas, not girls.”

“She’s your twin, Jake. She might not be the Alpha in title, but you’ll probably want her to help you lead. She’s going to be an exceptional warrior, too.”

I rolled my eyes. Ugh! We had just turned 16, and while I loved my twin, I didn’t want to do everything with her all the time.

My mom waltzed into the room behind me and ruffled my hair. “And I’m coming, too. Think of it as a family vacation.”

Three hours later, all four of us arrived at the Alpha summit at Silver Lake Pack. My mom went off to socialize with the other Lunas, dragging Sarah with her (to my delight and Sarah’s disappointment). My dad and I attended meeting after meeting. I recognized Alpha Zach, Alpha Oliver, and Alpha Jean-Luc from our neighboring packs, along with Zach’s son Connor and Jean-Luc’s son Pierre. Both were about my age, but neither seemed too excited to watch debates over territory lines or arcane rules.

We spent the night, and after more meetings and a late lunch the next afternoon, we headed back home. My dad’s Beta, his brother Christoff, had come with us for added security and was following us home. The third and youngest brother, Geoff, our Gamma, was holding down the fort at home.

As we rounded the next turn, all of the hair on my neck stood straight up. My dad gunned the engine, but it was too late. A dozen rogue wolves charged out of the woods, surrounding our SUV. I could see a dozen more around Christoff’s truck behind us.

My sister, ever the warrior, squeezed my hand to offer me reassurance.

“It’s okay, Jake. We’ll get out of this. I love you.” She said to me over our mindlink. I told her I loved her, too, and then my dad, Christoff, and I jumped out from the cars. Christoff had three warriors with him who all joined our fight. I was too young to shift, but I had practiced hand to hand combat for years.

I had just finished snapping the leg of a rogue when I saw Sarah and mom exit the car out of the corner of my eye. I yelled at them to get back inside. That distraction was costly. One of the enemy wolves bit my left arm, while another took a chunk out of my right calf. I held back a yelp, knowing it would only draw my family’s attention away from their own fights.

“JAKE!” Sarah screamed. s**t. I forgot about that. As twins, she could feel a fraction of my pain through out bond. She knew I was in trouble.

That’s when I noticed everyone on our side were still in their human forms, which was confusing.

“Alex, why aren’t you shifting?” I panted as I asked the warrior closest to me.

He grimaced, “Wolfsbane. It’s in the air or it was in our food back at the summit. We can’t shift.”

My face turned pale. Wolfsbane was poisonous in large quantities, but in smaller doses, it disconnected a werewolf from their wolf. If no one could shift, we were all stuck fighting wolves with our fists.

I surveyed the scene deciding where to attack next. Over half the rogues were dead, one of our warriors had died, and another was gravely injured. Sarah was fighting with a small brown wolf while my mom fought off two scraggly-looking grey wolves. My dad, Christoff, and Alex had surrounded the wounded warrior and were fighting back-to-back against the remaining rogues. I ran to them to help.

“Kiddo, look out!” Christoff yelled at me as a red wolf sprung at me out of nowhere. f**k. His claws scraped my stomach, and I winced but chased after him into the woods. With quick reflexes, I scampered around behind him and climbed on his back before twisted his neck, watching him fall to the ground lifelessly.

I had never killed a wolf before, and I wasted precious time trying to shake myself out of the daze I was in. I was an Alpha wolf, for goddess’s sake. Killing was part of the job. What broke me out of my trance was my father’s scream.

I felt the pack bond shift once, then twice, then three times. My entire body ached, and I felt as though I might not survive the pain.

I reached the roadside again and saw Christoff’s body, his neck snapped just as I had done to the rogue a few moments ago. My sister’s bracelet, the one with our initials linked inside an infinity symbol, was laying in a massive pool of her blood. My father was holding my mom in his arms, ignoring the huge hole in her chest where her heart should have been.

Alex looked at me from where he knelt on the ground, surrounded by lifeless rogues. His face was furious. The dead warriors were his friends, too.

“Someone set us up. Someone drugged us; someone told them our location; someone ensured we’d lose.” His eyes were glowing with anger.

“Jake, I think Gamma Geoff planned this. I think he wanted to take over the pack.”

My eyes were wide. No. Not my uncle. He wouldn’t betray his family. No one was that heartless. Right?

But I was wrong. Geoff had paid an omega at the Alpha summit to slip my family the wolfsbane. He had paid rogue wolves to tail and ambush us. And he’d specifically paid them to kill everyone except my dad, not counting on me running after the loose rogue, or Alex’s strength. He wanted my dad to suffer, to willingly hand over the pack to him.

The wolf council executed my uncle for his crimes, and Alex became our Beta. My dad did his best, but losing his mate, his brothers, and his daughter nearly killed him. A weaker man would not have carried on.

I shivered at the memory of that day, and the years of struggle our pack had endured as a result. And Cam had the nerve to bring it it up, to accuse my mate and my dear friend Estelle of being traitorous monsters like that omega or those rogues or… or my uncle.

Murphy’s gentle prodding eventually pulled me out of my own thoughts, and I gradually took control back from Hunter. I surveyed my office. Ah, s**t, this was an expensive lapse in control. I should make Cam pay for the repairs, the bastard.

Once Murphy had me calmed down, we headed down to my mate’s guest room together, so I could introduce Lexi and Murphy to each other, but my mind kept flickering back to Cam’s words. Most people can be bought for a price. How dare he.

“Jake.” Murphy’s voice was cool and calm. “I don’t know where your mind is, but should we do another loop around the floor, or are you going to snap yourself out of this? I’m not letting you into Lexi’s room on the verge of a breakdown, my friend. You won’t terrify your mate on my watch.”

He was right. I took deep, calming breaths like my therapist had taught me. Breathe in, count to four, breathe out, repeat.

“I’m good, man. Thanks, Murph,” I told him. I knocked on the door of the guest room and heard a sweet voice tell us to come in.