Don't Call Me Luna

Chapter Ten

KAT

Drowning in Truth

I lock myself in my trailer with a bottle of bourbon and the kind of rage that burns everything it touches.

Dave Westwood. Council spy. Alpha pretending to be beta. Man who kissed me like salvation while planning to steal everything I've built from the ground up. The betrayal sits in my chest like swallowed glass, cutting deeper every time I breathe.

Outside, Kentucky rain pounds the compound with the persistence of someone who's got nowhere else to be. Thunder rolls across the sky like God's having a temper tantrum, which seems appropriate given my current situation. I crack the bourbon seal and take a drink that burns all the way down.

Fucking perfect. Ten days of believing someone actually saw me as more than a problem to be solved. Ten days of thinking maybe I'd found someone who understood that broken doesn't mean worthless. Ten days of the best s*x I've never had with a man who made me believe in possibilities I'd given up on years ago.

All bullshit. All manipulation. All part of some Council plan to neutralize the troublesome female alpha by sending in someone pretty enough to make her stupid.

The bourbon tastes like mistakes and poor judgment, but I keep drinking anyway.

Through my trailer window, I can see Dave working in the pouring rain. Because of course he is. Because Dave Westwood doesn't let little things like weather or death threats or the woman he claims to love telling him to f**k off interfere with his mission to fix everything.

He's reinforcing the perimeter fence with help from what looks like half the local wildlife. A family of raccoons holds tools in tiny paws while crows dive-bomb anyone who gets too close to the work site. Even in this downpour, butterflies cluster around him like colorful umbrellas, and I watch a blue jay bring him nails in its beak.

Disney Princess. I called him that as an insult, but watching him coordinate construction with creatures that should be hiding from this weather, it looks less like mockery and more like magic.

Another drink. Another cut from the glass in my chest.

My pack moves around him like he belongs there. Like he's been part of this family for years instead of days. Big Eddie brings him coffee and what looks like homemade muffins. The twins take shifts holding lumber while he hammers, their mountain lion reflexes keeping them steady despite wind that's trying to knock everyone sideways.

Even Methany emerges from her trailer wearing a colander as a hat and a rain poncho that might be a shower curtain, offering commentary on fence post alignment that Dave actually listens to with the kind of attention most people reserve for actual experts.

My pack. My family. My people.

Working with the man who's about to take them away from me.

I drink until the bourbon stops burning and start thinking about all the ways this could have gone differently. If I'd been smarter. If I'd been more careful. If I'd remembered that good things don't happen to people like me without hidden costs.

Hours pass in a haze of alcohol and self-recrimination. Rain continues to beat against my trailer like it's trying to wash away sins that won't come clean. By the time darkness starts creeping across the compound, I'm drunk enough to feel philosophical about betrayal and sober enough to hurt.

A knock at my door interrupts my pity party.

"Go away."

"It's Tommy."

"Still go away."

"I'm coming in anyway. Fair warning."

The door opens to reveal Tommy dripping wet and looking like someone who's spent the day watching disaster unfold in real time. He steps inside without invitation, closes the door behind him, and studies my current state with the clinical assessment of someone whose psychology classes didn't skip the chapter on functional alcoholism.

"You look like shit."

"Thanks. Really needed that professional opinion."

He settles into the chair across from me, water pooling beneath him on linoleum that's seen better decades. "We need to talk."

"We need you to leave."

"Dave's been working for eight hours straight. In the rain. Haven't seen him take a break for food or water or basic human necessities."

"Good for him."

"Kat."

"What, Tommy? What exactly do you want me to say? That I'm sorry for being angry about getting played? That I should be grateful someone finally found a way to solve all our problems by making me irrelevant?"

Tommy's quiet for a long moment, studying me with eyes that have seen too much pain in his short life. When he finally speaks, his voice carries the weight of someone who understands betrayal in ways most people never will.

"My family threw me out when I was sixteen. Told me I was an abomination who'd bring shame on the pack name. Said I could come crawling back when I learned to be normal."

I know this story. Lived with Tommy for six years, watched him build himself back up from the wreckage his blood family left behind. But hearing it now, in the context of Dave's revelation, hits different.

"You think I'm being dramatic."

"I think you're scared. I think you found something good and you're terrified it's going to disappear like everything else good in your life."

"It already has disappeared. The man I thought I was falling for doesn't exist."

"Doesn't he?"

"Tommy."

"Has Dave treated you any differently since you found out? Has he demanded submission or respect or any of the bullshit alphas usually want?"

I want to say yes. Want to point to some evidence that confirms my worst assumptions about his motives. But the truth is, Dave's spent the day building defenses for a pack that might hate him, working to protect people who've already decided he's the enemy.

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"The point is he lied."

"About what?"

"About everything. About who he is, what he wants, why he's here."

Tommy leans forward, rain-soaked and serious. "Did he lie about caring for this pack? Did he lie about wanting to protect us? Did he lie about falling for a woman who built something extraordinary from nothing?"

Each question hits like accusation, like maybe I'm the one twisting truth to fit narrative instead of the other way around.

"It doesn't matter what he feels if the result is the same."

"What result?"

"Me losing everything I've worked for."

"Or you gaining everything you've fought for."

Before I can respond, my door opens again. Uncle Hiro steps inside with the kind of presence that makes rain seem like minor inconvenience. Water drips from his jacket, but he looks more like he's been swimming in wisdom than walking through weather.

"Suzy."

"Uncle."

"We need to discuss practical matters."

"I'm drunk."

"I know. Sometimes drunk people hear truth better than sober ones."

He settles onto my couch with the fluid grace of someone who's never met a chair he couldn't make comfortable. For several minutes, we sit in silence broken only by rain against windows and the distant sound of construction that continues despite conditions.

"Tell me about Beauregard Remington."

The name hits like cold water. "What about him?"

"Council files say he's requested absorption rights to Howling Pines. What do you know about his pack management style?"

I know plenty about Beauregard f*****g Remington. Old school alpha who thinks women exist for breeding and service. Runs his pack like a military dictatorship where questioning authority gets you exiled or worse.

"He's traditional."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he'd separate families. Put women in breeding programs. Use men like Eddie and Tommy as disposable labor until they outlive their usefulness."

"And Methany?"

My blood goes cold. Methany with her fae blood and unstable chemistry, her tendency to create chaos wherever she goes. Beauregard would see her as liability to be eliminated.

"He'd kill her."

"What about Luna? Sixteen years old, psychic abilities that make pack security difficult?"

"Same result."

"Margot? Half-fae with tendency toward chemical experimentation?"

"Dead."

"The twins? Former addicts with violent histories?"

"Gone."

Hiro nods like I'm confirming answers he already knew. "So if this pack gets absorbed by traditional alphas, we lose approximately twenty percent of our people to immediate elimination. Another thirty percent get separated from family units and redistributed according to usefulness rather than bonds."

The bourbon in my stomach turns to acid. Twenty percent. One in five people I've sworn to protect, dead because I couldn't find a way to keep them safe.

"What's your point?"

"My point is that Dave's solution keeps everyone alive. Keeps families together. Maintains pack structure under leadership that understands what we've built here."

"Under his leadership."

"Under leadership that won't sacrifice people for ideological purity."

Another knock interrupts before I can respond. This time it's Cheryl, looking like she's been swimming upstream against bureaucratic nightmares all day.

"Council's moved up the timeline. Forty hours instead of forty-six."

"What?"

"Morrison pack filed additional complaints. Federal weapons charges, tax evasion, allegations that we're running drugs through farmers markets." She settles beside Hiro, creating what feels suspiciously like an intervention. "Governor Lamont's backing their claims. Says rogue packs represent clear and present danger to state security."

"So we're f****d either way."

"We're f****d if Dave doesn't file alpha registration in the next day and a half."

I stare at the three people who know me better than anyone else in the world. Tommy, who understands what it means to lose family over things you can't control. Hiro, who's watched me build this pack from scattered pieces and desperate need. Cheryl, who's been beside me through every victory and failure for fifteen years.

They're all looking at me like the answer's obvious. Like preservation trumps pride. Like keeping people alive matters more than keeping control.

"You think I should agree to this."

"I think you should consider whether your authority is worth more than Eddie's life." Hiro's voice carries the kind of calm that makes hard truths sound reasonable. "Whether maintaining control matters more than keeping Methany safe. Whether being alpha is more important than being family."

The questions hang in alcohol-scented air like challenges I'm not ready to face. Outside, rain continues its assault on everything we've built, but through my window I can see lights in every trailer. People going about evening routines in homes they believe are secure.

Ninety-seven souls who trust me to keep them safe.

Even if it means trusting someone else to do it.

"He's still lying about something."

"What makes you say that?"

"Nobody gives up fifty million dollar trust funds and family approval to play house with rogues. Nobody risks everything for people they've known ten days."

Cheryl and Hiro exchange looks that suggest they've had conversations about this topic already.

"Maybe he's not lying. Maybe he's just found something worth more than money or approval."

"Like what?"

"Like home. Like family. Like love that doesn't come with conditions."

The words hit harder than intended, cutting through bourbon haze to places that hurt even when I'm drunk. Because that's what Dave offered, isn't it? Love without requirements. Acceptance without improvement projects. Someone who looked at my damage and saw strength instead of problems to solve.

"I'm not ready to forgive him."

"Nobody's asking you to forgive him."

"But?"

"But maybe consider whether being right is worth watching your family get scattered to packs that won't value what they are."

Tommy stands, water still dripping from clothes that should have dried by now. "I'm going back out there. Going to help finish the fence work."

"In this weather?"

"Dave's been working alone for eight hours. Someone should make sure he doesn't collapse from exhaustion or hypothermia."

He pauses at my door, looking back with expression that's part challenge, part invitation.

"Come with me. See what he's building out there. Then decide whether this is really about betrayal or whether it's about being scared of needing someone."

The door closes behind him, leaving me with Hiro and Cheryl and the kind of silence that demands decisions.

"Forty hours." Cheryl's voice carries the weight of countdown clocks and last chances. "After that, choices get made for us."

"And if I say yes? If I agree to let Dave claim the pack?"

"Then we file paperwork, he fights the other alphas, and we hope Council recognizes his authority."

"And if he loses?"

"Then we're exactly where we are now, except with less time to find alternatives."

Hiro stands with the fluid grace of someone who's settled whatever internal debate he was having. "The question isn't whether you trust Dave. The question is whether you trust him more than you trust Beauregard Remington and Colton Walker."

He's right, of course. This isn't about love or betrayal or wounded pride. This is about keeping ninety-seven people alive and together and safe.

This is about choosing between bad options and worse ones.

This is about saving my family even if it means giving up my authority.

"I need to think."

"You need to decide." Cheryl gathers her wet jacket, preparing to brave the storm again. "Because while you're thinking, Dave's out there building defenses for people who might not be here tomorrow to benefit from them."

They leave me alone with bourbon and rain and the weight of decisions that will change everything no matter what I choose. Through my window, I can see Dave still working despite conditions that should have driven any sane person indoors hours ago.

He's not alone anymore. Tommy's joined him, along with Eddie and the twins. Even Margot has emerged from her lab to hold flashlights while they secure fence posts in ground turned to mud.

My pack. My family. My people.

Working together to build something that might protect them all.

Even from me.

I set down the bourbon and watch them work in rain that's supposed to wash things clean but mostly just makes everything harder to see. Dave moves among them with easy authority, directing efforts without demanding submission, building consensus instead of issuing orders.

He's good at this. Natural leader in ways that have nothing to do with dominance displays or territorial posturing. The kind of alpha who earns loyalty through competence instead of demanding it through fear.

The kind of alpha this pack deserves.

Even if it means I'm not.

Outside, the rain begins to ease, and for the first time today, I can see clearly enough to understand what needs to happen next.

Even if I'm not ready to forgive the man who's going to make it possible.