Come Back To Me, My Luna

No One Touches Her

DEA

I had to leave. I needed to get away from here. Anywhere but here.

That’s the only thing running in my thoughts while trying to calm down my racing heartbeat. Brad had gone back to his post after I assured him that I am fine though my pale face and shaking hands readily gave away my current state.

I pushed the door open, stumbling into the back office, ignoring the familiar faces of the staff. Betty looked up from the counter, her brow furrowed.

“Dea? What happened to you?” she asked in her soft voice. “You’re so pale.”

I tried to speak, but my words came out in a strangled whisper. “W-Where is Greg?”

My hands were trembling on my back, my eyes darting to every corner of the room expecting that red-eyed man to just appear magically.

As if on cue, the boss went out of his office, his lips thinning in annoyance when he saw me. “You had a break for more than ten minutes so I’m putting you on night shift again tomorrow and another two hours overtime without pay.”

“W-What? You can’t do that! That’s illegal!”

Greg just loomed behind the counter with that smirk I wanted to smash.

“Nothing is illegal for the boss, little Dea.”

“I’m quitting. I’m resigning effective immediately, Greg.”

His dark eyes lit up with some perverse amusement as he pulled out a folded document from his pocket. My stomach dropped seeing the contract with my signature and fingerprint on it.

“Thought you could just walk away, huh?” he said with his grin so wide and cruel that the stranger earlier looked kinder compared to him. “You knew the contract, Dea. You signed it. Fifty thousand dollars bond. That’s your price to leave. No payment, no freedom.”

I froze, my stomach twisting into knots. Fifty thousand? The number burned in my mind. I barely made enough to cover rent and groceries on top of my mother’s piling hospital debts and now… this?

“I-I can’t,” I choked, my voice cracking. Fear, anger, helplessness all smashing into one that I could feel my cheeks heating and my chest tightening.

Greg leaned closer, eyes gleaming with malice. “Think you can just walk away from me? From the debts you signed up for? I suggest you figure out how to pay, or stay under my thumb forever or maybe…”

His words hang in the air. “You could pay me with a night of endless bliss,” he snickered, dragging his heated eyes over my body.

I clenched my hands in disgust letting out a sigh before turning into my heels and returning to my duties.

I heard him laugh as if relishing on the idea that he has me wrapped into his fingers.

It sucks to be poor, to have no choice, and to be lusted over by a man who had a grip on your own life.

And so I spent the rest of the days of the week shaken at home and back at work trying to erase the memories of that night though it would it’s too impossible because I can still feel his lips on mine, on my neck. I can even see his red eyes on my skin, and can taste his intoxicating blood in my senses.

I was always on guard, especially when walking home because I feel like someone is always watching me.

Like now.

I barely noticed the figures emerging from the darkness at the end of the street until it was too late. Three men, all grinning like predators, stepped out in front of me. I know them. They are the loan sharks that Jane has been running away from.

My stomach sank. My legs wanted to run but my mind went blank when I saw the g*n in their hands.

“Hand over the money, Jane,” the bald one said, stepping closer. His breath reeked of whiskey and cigarettes. “We’ve given you two weeks already. We can’t wait for another day.”

“I’m not Jane. I’m her twin sister,” I stammered, shaking. My voice barely carried over the wind over the pounding of my heart.

They laughed in unison, clearly not buying my explanation.

“You little b***h! Do not lie to us!”

“Help!” I screamed when one of them grabbed my arm, yanking me forward as the other two held both my legs and arms.

Screams bubbled out of my throat when they dragged me into an empty alley.

“If you can’t pay us money, then you will pay us with your body. We are going to sell you to traffickers after we are done with you!”

Panic enslaved me. “N-No! Don’t touch me! I said don’t t-”

I heard a growl and the three men hovering on me were tossed out into the air followed by a grunt when the bald one was slashed by sharp claws on his stomach.

I saw him before I even fully registered it.

I saw how his hand grew some fur over the long blood-dripped claws as he kicked and slashed the men and cracked their skull easily, the wet, sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground.

I stumbled back on my butt, my hands over my mouth. Blood spattered the walls, the asphalt, and on my jacket.

By the time the thugs realized what was happening, it was already over for them.

He moved with precision in an unemotional terrifying grace like it came natural for him. And then… silence.

“W-What did you do to them?” I asked in a small voice staring wide eyed at the stranger that I had been running away from bathing with the blood from his victims who were lying cold on the ground.

His killer eyes shifted instantly to a soft version seeing me beyond terrified splayed on the ground. “I just killed them. They touched you. No one touches you and gets away with it.”

He said it a bit too coldly that my mind supplied the idea that he must be some kind of a psychopath who enjoys killing people.

And I could be his next victim!

My legs gave out that I anticipated myself hitting the pavement which did not happen when a pair of strong arms enveloped me. My hands shook uncontrollably. I couldn’t process it. The scene, the blood, the smell, the presence of this man… It was too much for me.

“Make sure to clean the mess I gladly made here. I don’t want humans snooping around my business.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I still heard him say before darkness took me.

When I woke up to men’s voices murmuring, I kept my eyes shut listening to them planning what to do now that I am obviously in the man’s house.

“Alpha Arthur, we can just c***k her bones for easier healing,” said the man with a high-pitched voice.

“Are you an i***t? She is a human. She’s not a wolf like us,” another young sounding man.

“She is,” the man who saved me spoke in his deep voice. “She just forgot about it. Let her heal naturally. Don’t feed us with your barbaric ways.”

“But isn’t he the one who introduced that method to us?”

“Shh, just shut your mouth up.”

“Leave me alone with my luna.”

I waited to hear the opening and closing of the food before I opened my eyes slowly. I blinked, taking in the room. I was in a very large four-poster bed in a grand room with questionable furniture design like it had been preserved from another time. There were paintings hung on the wall and antique chairs dating back to the 1900s that made it felt like I was in a museum.

“You’re safe now,” the man sitting on a chair beside the bed spoke. “No one can touch you here. You’re with me.”

I jerked from his voice and my eyes watered instantly when I remembered how he killed those guys with only his hands.

“Don’t kill me…” I begged crawling to the headboard while clutching myself.

I heard him cuss under his teeth before he stood up and stepped back, his hands in the air as if in surrender.

“Shhh… I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to touch you. I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, clearly skeptical.

“Yes, of course. I won’t step any closer.” He slid down the back of the door and sat down, keeping a long distance from the bed. “Please relax, mo bheatha.”

I let out a sigh arranging my legs beneath the blanket and noticing a bandage on my knees.

“Wh-what… where am I?” I whispered instead of thanking him for treating my wounds.

“You’re home now,” he answered, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. But his eyes, his blue eyes were dangerous, hungry, and possessed with something I couldn’t yet name.

I swallowed hard, my body turning rigid again at the softness in his voice and the ambiguity of his words. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to,” he said gently, throwing me a yearning look. “You’re safe. I won’t let anyone harm you. Not ever. You’re mine, my luna.”

I flinched, pulling back instinctively, trying to reconcile the man who had terrified me in the alley with this calm, almost intimate tone he’s using on me.

“I—” I started, voice trembling. Words failed me, distracted by his blue eyes. I couldn't think and I could barely breathe in his presence.

But I want to make a point. I want to ask him something.

As if reading my mind, he watched me patiently waiting for me to say it.

The man sighed, shaking his head in finality as if he already know what I am going to say.

“I’m sorry my luna but I can never let you go because it is my lifetime duty to protect you.”

I should have been terrified. Instead, my heart answered him before I could stop it.

“I… I don't want you to go…”