Don't Call Me Luna

Chapter Nine

DAVE

The Secret To Hiding Your True Self

The Morrison pack rides straight through our perimeter like they own the place.

Four bikes, four riders, enough firepower to level half the compound if they're feeling ambitious. Dirk leads the charge on his custom Harley, flanked by Blade, Diesel, and Steve-who-still-can't-remember-he's-supposed-to-be-Fury. They're armed, aggressive, and riding like men who've decided talking time is over.

I step in front of Kat before conscious thought engages.

"Dave, don't—"

"Stay behind me."

The bikes circle us in a cloud of dust and testosterone, engines revving like mechanical war drums. Dirk cuts his motor and swings off with the kind of dramatic flair that suggests he's been practicing this moment in mirrors.

"Well, well. The Council's pet lawyer and his bitch."

The word 'b***h' hits my nervous system like live wire. Something deep inside me uncoils, stretches, tests boundaries I've spent twenty-nine years reinforcing with meditation and good intentions.

"You're trespassing."

"Am I?" Dirk's smile reveals teeth that have seen better decades. "Funny thing about rogue packs. No legal standing means no legal protections. This land's up for grabs, and I'm grabbing."

"The hell you are."

Kat starts forward, but I catch her arm. Not restraining, just anchoring. She's vibrating with the need to introduce Dirk's face to violent physics, but four against two are bad odds when the four are armed and eager.

"Easy there, sweetheart." Blade dismounts, hand resting on something that looks suspiciously like a Glock. "This is business. Nothing personal."

"Everything about this is personal."

Dirk approaches with the swaggering confidence of someone who's never met consequences he couldn't buy or intimidate his way past. "See, here's the thing. Council's been asking questions about Howling Pines. About sustainability. About leadership."

My blood goes cold. "What kind of questions?"

"The kind that end with disbandment orders and absorption negotiations." His smile could strip paint. "Good news is, I'm prepared to take your people off the Council's hands. The attractive ones, anyway."

The casual way he discusses human trafficking makes my wolf snarl against its cage. Twenty-nine years of careful control, and this piece of s**t is threatening to unravel everything with biker gang mentality and alpha posturing.

"You're not taking anyone anywhere."

"Dave." Kat's voice carries warning, but I'm past listening. Past caring about consequences or Council oversight or the careful game of politics that's supposed to solve this peacefully.

"You heard her. Leave."

Dirk laughs, ugly and sharp. "Or what? You'll quote regulations at me again? File a complaint with supernatural resources?"

"Or I'll make you leave."

The words hang in the air between us, loaded with implications that can't be taken back. Dirk's eyes narrow, finally recognizing something in my voice that doesn't match his assumptions about soft Council lawyers who solve problems with paperwork.

"You threatening me, pretty boy?"

"I'm promising you."

What happens next unfolds with the brutal efficiency of violence finally unleashed.

Dirk swings first, telegraphing the punch like amateur hour at the local gym. I duck under his fist and drive my elbow into his solar plexus, feeling ribs crack under the impact. He doubles over, wheezing, and I follow up with a knee to his face that sends blood spraying across Kentucky dirt.

Blade's going for his gun, but Kat's already moving. Her knife finds his wrist before the Glock clears leather, opening veins that spray crimson across his motorcycle. He screams, weapon clattering to the ground.

Diesel comes at me with a blade that glints in afternoon light. Eight inches of steel aimed at my kidney, fast enough to be serious. I twist away from the thrust, catch his wrist, and use his momentum to send him sprawling. The knife skitters across gravel.

Steve hesitates, which is his first mistake. His second is assuming I won't hit someone who looks confused about basic identity concepts.

My fist connects with his jaw, dropping him like gravity just remembered its job.

But Diesel's not done. He rolls, comes up with another blade—backup weapon, smart planning—and this time his aim is better. Steel slides between my ribs like it belongs there, hot and wrong and exactly deep enough to make a point.

"f**k!"

Pain explodes through my chest, bright and sharp and absolutely infuriating. Blood soaks through my shirt, warm and sticky and proof that Diesel just escalated this beyond property disputes into actual attempted murder.

I grab the knife handle and yank it free, blood flowing faster now but my healing magic already working to close the damage. Diesel grins, thinking he's won something important.

He's wrong.

I flip the blade in my hand and throw it with the kind of precision you learn from years of target practice and deeply ingrained muscle memory. Eight inches of steel buries itself in Diesel's thigh, right where major arteries like to hide.

His scream could shatter glass.

"Jesus Christ!" Blade clutches his bleeding wrist, staring at me like I've grown extra heads. "You crazy son of a b***h!"

"You came here armed. You drew weapons first. You want to call this self-defense or mutual combat, I'm flexible."

Dirk staggers to his feet, nose bent at angles that suggest permanent character improvement. Blood streams down his face, but his eyes burn with the kind of rage that promises future complications.

"This isn't over."

"Yeah, it is."

"You think the Council's going to protect you? You think they give a s**t about some beta playing pack protector?" He spits blood, revealing teeth that will need dental work. "I'm going to tell them everything. About the guns, the drugs, the federal tax evasion. About you assaulting legally recognized pack alphas on disputed territory."

The threat hits like ice water. Not just personal consequences, but pack-wide destruction. Everything Kat's built, everything these people depend on, destroyed because I couldn't control my protective instincts long enough to find a diplomatic solution.

"Tell them." My voice comes out calmer than I feel. "Tell them Dave Westwood kicked your ass for threatening innocent people. See how that plays with supernatural law enforcement."

"Westwood?" For the first time, actual fear flickers in Dirk's eyes. "You're actually—"

"Actually exactly who I said I was."

They retreat toward their bikes, Diesel limping, Blade clutching his wrist, Steve still looking confused about basic reality. Dirk mounts his Harley one-handed, the other holding his broken nose in place.

"This isn't over," he repeats, but it sounds more like wishful thinking than actual threat.

"It is for today."

They roar away in clouds of dust and wounded pride, leaving behind blood stains and the kind of mess that creates paperwork nightmares for weeks.

"Dave." Kat's voice cuts through the aftermath silence. "Your chest."

I look down at my shirt, now more crimson than cotton. The wound has already stopped bleeding, but the evidence of violence decorates me like abstract art.

"It's fine. Healing fast."

"That's not fine. That's not human healing."

She's right, of course. Normal people don't shrug off knife wounds like paper cuts. Normal people don't heal fast enough to stop arterial bleeding in minutes instead of hours.

"We should get you inside."

"In a minute."

My phone buzzes with incoming call from the one number I absolutely don't want to see right now. Ruben Lopez, Council oversight, perfect timing for maximum complications.

"I have to take this."

"Dave—"

"Ruben. What can I do for you?"

"David." His voice carries the weight of someone delivering terminal diagnoses. "We need to talk. Immediately."

"Now's not great."

"Now is perfect. Morrison pack just filed a formal complaint alleging assault, battery, and gross misconduct by Council personnel. They're also claiming territorial rights to Howling Pines compound and requesting immediate pack absorption authority."

The world tilts sideways. "They're doing what?"

"Furthermore, they've provided evidence of illegal weapons trafficking, controlled substance manufacturing, and federal tax evasion. The Council is prepared to authorize disbandment proceedings within forty-eight hours."

"Ruben—"

"There's one option. One way to prevent complete destruction of everything you've been working toward."

I close my eyes, already knowing I'm not going to like whatever comes next. "I'm listening."

"Come out as alpha. Officially. Change your registration, claim the pack, and challenge the absorption claims through combat trial."

The words hit like physical blows. Everything I've spent my life avoiding, every assumption I've let my family make about my nature, every careful construction of identity built around being something other than what Westwood genetics designed me to be.

"David, are you there?"

"I'm here."

"Two other alphas have filed absorption claims. Marcus Reid from Smoky Mountain pack, and Elena Vasquez from Cumberland pack. You challenge them, you win, the pack stays intact under your leadership. The Council recognizes Howling Pines as legitimate supernatural territory."

"And if I lose?"

"You won't lose. We both know what you really are, even if you've been hiding from it your entire life."

"My family—"

"Your family will have concerns. Adding another alpha to Blueridge territory creates succession complications. Your father won't be pleased about potential competition for pack leadership."

My siblings will lose their collective s**t. Another alpha in the family means their inheritance gets muddied, their positions less secure. It means I stop being the disappointing beta son and become a legitimate threat to everything they've assumed about their futures.

"Forty-eight hours, David. File the paperwork, claim the pack, or watch ninety-seven people get scattered to territories that may not welcome them with open arms."

The line goes dead, leaving me staring at my phone and bleeding through a shirt that probably costs more than most people's weekly groceries.

"What did he say?"

Kat's voice cuts through my spiral of panic and impossible choices. She's standing three feet away, close enough to touch but suddenly feeling like miles of distance.

"He said there's a way to save the pack."

"What way?"

"I have to claim it. Officially. Challenge the other alphas who want to absorb you into their territories."

Her face goes through several expressions before settling on something that looks like betrayal mixed with rage. "Claim the pack."

"Kat—"

"Claim the pack." She repeats it like the words taste poisonous. "As in, take over. As in, push me out and assume leadership."

"It's not like that."

"What's it like then?"

"It's like saving ninety-seven people from being scattered across territories that might use them as disposable resources."

"By becoming their alpha. By taking what I built and making it yours."

The accusation hits harder than Diesel's knife. "That's not what this is."

"Isn't it?" Her eyes burn with the kind of fury that levels cities. "Council sends you here, you play helpful beta for ten days, get everyone to trust you, and then reveal you're actually alpha who can just take over whenever it's convenient."

"I didn't know—"

"Bullshit. You knew exactly what you were. You've been playing the long game since day one."

"Suzy—"

"Don't call me that." The words come out sharp enough to draw blood. "Don't use my real name like we're something special. Like last night meant anything more than softening me up for the takeover."

"Last night meant everything to me."

"Last night was a lie."

She's backing away now, putting distance between us like I'm something toxic. The betrayal in her eyes cuts deeper than any physical wound.

"It wasn't a lie. None of it was a lie."

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get out. Leave. Take your Council authority and your alpha registration and your f*****g savior complex and get the hell off my territory."

"I'm not leaving."

"Yes, you are."

"No." The word comes out with enough authority to make her wolf flinch. "I'm not leaving. I'm not abandoning this pack. I'm not abandoning you."

"You don't get to make that choice."

"Watch me."

We stare at each other across three feet of Kentucky dirt and ten days of accumulated trust that's crumbling like cheap concrete. She's magnificent in her rage, terrible and beautiful and completely wrong about my motivations.

"I'll challenge the other alphas. I'll claim the pack if that's what it takes to keep you safe. But I'm not doing it to take anything from you. I'm doing it to protect what you've built."

"Same result."

"Different intent."

"Intent doesn't matter when the outcome destroys everything I've worked for."

"The outcome saves everyone you care about."

"By making me subordinate to you. By taking my pack and my authority and making me your beta."

The words hang between us like accusations I can't refute because they're technically accurate. Alpha claiming means pack leadership transfers. It means her authority becomes advisory instead of absolute.

It means destroying her to save her people.

"I won't do it that way."

"You don't get to choose how pack law works."

"Then I'll change pack law."

She laughs, bitter and broken. "You can't change law to make betrayal feel better."

"It's not betrayal if it's the only option."

"It's betrayal if you do it without asking."

"I'm asking now."

"And I'm saying no."

"Then we find another way."

"There is no other way. You said so yourself. Claim the pack or watch it get disbanded."

The choice sits between us like a loaded weapon. Save ninety-seven people by destroying the woman I love, or maintain her trust while watching everything she's built get scattered to the wind.

"Forty-six hours." I check my phone's clock, counting down to catastrophe. "Forty-six hours to find a third option."

"There isn't a third option."

"Then I'll make one."

"Dave."

"I'll find a way to save the pack without destroying what we have. I'll find a way to protect everyone without taking anything from you."

"And if you can't?"

I meet her eyes, letting her see the truth that's going to destroy us both. "Then I'll choose saving your people over keeping your trust."

"Even if I hate you for it?"

"Even then."

The admission hangs between us like a death sentence for whatever we might have been. She studies my face, looking for deception or doubt and finding only grim determination to protect her pack even if it costs me everything I actually want.

"Forty-six hours." She turns away, shoulders straight and proud even in defeat. "Then you become everything I'd always feared you were."