Page 9 of Luna's Forgotten Vow

Boots crunch against the gravel behind me. "Is she alive?"

I cock my head, observing. "Barely."

The wicked side to me considers turning around and leaving her for dead because she is none of my business. The cunning side, however, thinks this an opportunity like no other. Ronan has stolen something of mine, like always. Why not steal something of his?

Another part of me, a softer, more humane side I thought I had discarded many years ago has me crouching and pressing two fingers against her pulse point. It's too weak. She'll die before we find a doctor—two pulses?

My eyes dart to the other source of her bleeding, between her legs.

Ah, but this changes everything.

A claw flicks out from my pointer finger and I cut a deep gash along my palm.

"What are you doing?" Eric asks curiously, leaning over as I bring my blood to her lips.

"Finding leverage," I murmur as her lips part and latch onto the heel of my palm. The healing properties in my blood should keep her alive for long enough to get a physician to have a look at her.

Her eyelids crack open slightly, but the violet of her eyes are glazed over as she murmurs in a thick slur, "My baby..."

I lift the broken, little woman into my arms and I don't know why I bother whispering to her soothingly, "You're okay. I've got you."

Twenty years ago, I was hunting along with my father and his Beta. Security had been breached, rogues from the South killing off the weaker packs on the outskirts.

Ten years old and I was already a well-bred killer. A hunter in every respect. Father took the path down the creek while I followed the trail of a pup that smelled foreign.

I found him not too far, hiding in the shrubs. Ronan Callahan. It marked the beginning of our friendship, from his end at least.

He was a pesky little thing that latched on until he began to grow on me. I didn't have friends, so on the days he snuck into my pack, I was more than happy for the company. I taught him to fight, fixed up his injuries, introduced him to my family and called him brother.

Only to have him stab me in the back a few years later.

I scowl at the trip down memory lane, rubbing at the scar that runs down my right eye. On some days, it still hurts. "What am I looking at?"

Dr. Rayne taps the pre-surgery scan. "This is where the impact was the worst. The force of it caused a fracture right here," she circles a jagged crack near the ear, just above the jawline, "which led to swelling and the brain bleed."

She moves to the post-surgery scan. "Structurally, she's healing faster thanks to your blood, but the residual trauma to the hippocampus and surrounding structures is why she's experiencing retrograde amnesia and thinks we're in the year 2021. Memory loss isn't something we can just stitch back together. That part... we'll have to wait and see."

I nod, fingers flexing. Things are getting more tedious by the second. "And the babe?"

Rayne tucks her hair behind her ear as she leans back in her seat. "In perfect condition, which is surprising, considering the condition she was found in."

I am beginning to think everything about Seraphina Everly will surprise me at every turn. What will I do with her? Hold herhostage? Send parts of her back to Ronan in the same fashion he had sent me Eric's middle finger? No. I was hardly one to be used as a moral compass, but even I have a strong aversion to hurting females and children.

"You can see her now. Fiona is seeing to her medications, but she is awake," Rayne tells me, but there's a hint of sharpness in her tone when she refers to Seraphina.

Rayne may be my ex, but she still happens to be the best doctor across all packs, and she knows how to keep her mouth shut when need be. Interacting with her, even after many years have passed since our messy break up, proved just as difficult, but I had no other choice.

My hand grazes the doorknob when she says, "You never fussed about me like that. You must not have cared enough."

I look back. Stunning gray eyes hold mine and her light blonde hair that I had once plaited into braids after fucking her falls into beautiful waves. "You know that isn't true."

Tears line her eyes. "You haven't forgiven me, yet."

"I have." My words are as empty as my heart. I cared for her once, enough to contemplate making her my Luna, and even after she fucked Ronan, I still cared. But that was eight years ago and sentimentalities have no place in my life anymore.

Her lips purse. "Who is she to you? You've looked after her for three days without rest. Is it your child she carries?"

I stare at her and though I know I owe her nothing, I say, "Yes."

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