Page 89 of Crystal Luna

“So, he had no nefarious intentions?”

“A rogue wolf girl? Of course, he was curious but I’m not an idiot. So no, his main intention wasn’t to get me into his bed.”

“It clearly worked because you did end up being his bitch.”

“Ash enough!” Isaiah had finally found his temper.

Ash leapt from the couch with a deep, frustrated growl. He stomped over to the window and glared outside, the emotions swarming his mind almost unreadable.

“Vel, did Alpha Heath ever make you feel uncomfortable or push you to do something you didn’t want?”

“I’m not sure why that is any of your business. But yes, he has." Velora punctuated her sentence with a pointed glare in his direction.

“Other than pushing you to go with us?”

“No.”

“Look, we’re obviously jealous, but that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. We just want to understand you better. Alpha Heath said you never wanted to be his luna so that clearly wasn’t your intention with him.” Isaiah stood up and reached for her empty bowl. “Would you like more?”

The act seemed to have shocked her, but she quickly masked it and shook her head.

With a deep breath, Ash turned back and sat down. His emotions were still running high, but not nearly as wild as before. “We looked for you, you know? We thought you’d been taken by rogues.”

“When we saw you were gone, we hunted the wolf down but by the time we reached Swiftport we couldn’t find you.”

She shrugged and leaned back into her chair. “I didn’t stay there long.”

Isaiah returned to the room, snack in hand and handed it over to her along with the blanket from the couch. “We never thought you’d be the wolf.”

“Yeah, how dare the human bitch be blessed with a wolf.” Her tone was dark and hard, her gaze moving past them and out the window.

“How did you run so fast as a new pup?” Ash asked, his mind growing calmer with each word she said. That’s all he’d wanted since finding her: to hear her side of the story.

“I had no other choice.”

“Why not tell us?”

“If I’d told you, you would’ve followed me. I wasn’t going to lose the one advantage I had over you.”

She threw the blanket to the floor, then stormed into her bedroom. The slam of the door sent a clear message. She hadn’t asked them to leave, so they stayed and listened as she tucked herself in. They stayed quiet as her heartbeat slowed and she drifted off to sleep.

Ash threw himself against the back of the couch, his face twisted into a grimace of pain and frustration. ‘We fucked up.’

‘And she’s gonna make us pay.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Velora

Velora groaned when she glanced at her clock the next morning. Rayan wouldn’t show up for another hour, so she had no idea what to do with herself. Asher and Isaiah were fast asleep in the living room, so breakfast was off limits—they’d only wake up and want to talk.

She sucked in a frustrated breath and threw the blankets aside, sitting up on the edge of the bed to massage her temples. She still couldn’t believe her new reality. She wasn’t really worried about her things, she barely had much to her name anyway. She’d never cared about material possessions—all she needed was a roof over her head and food to eat.

She padded into the bathroom, stripping her clothes and turning on the shower. She didn’t need the shower—it was more for something to do. So she tied her hair up to protect it from getting wet and stepped in. With her back to the water, she let the hot spray massage her shoulders. Since Asher and Isaiah stumbled back into her life, she’d felt tense and unable to relax—and that was before they’d taken up residence in her living room.

She wanted to cry, to scream into the steam surrounding her but it seemed that she had no more tears left.

A sudden knock on the bedroom door made her flinch.

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