Page 85 of Moonlight and Mischief
She kisses me recklessly, not caring who sees. I wish the moment could stretch forever, but hesitantly I set my beautiful partner back on her feet and turn to face our pack.
Slate gives me a nod, holding Hazel tight to his side. Heath stands nearby, talking with Fisher. Fern and Cassia wrangle our prisoners into a row. No one seems to have noticed our intimate moment.
Marigold stills. I follow her gaze. Both my mother and sister watch us with haughty expressions. “Jasper, who is that?” Ember demands. She seems to be looking for a distraction. Surprisingly, Sienna stays silent, her expression unreadable.
My mate smiles wearily. “I’m Marigold.” She slips out of my grasp and crouches a few feet from Ember. “I hope someday we can be friends, but that’s up to you.”
Ember glares at her, her mouth opening and closing before she snarls, “Don’t count on it.” Her sneer is hollow, her eyes haunted.
Marigold shrugs and rises. Pulling her to my side, I lean my temple against her hair. “She hurt Onyx,” I say quietly.
“Really?” Marigold says sharply, turning to see our friend leaning against the building. “You doing okay, big guy?”
“Concerned for me, Goldie?” Onyx says flirtatiously.
She laughs. I’m too relieved to mind his tone. A teasing Onyx is fine. It’s when he gets serious that we have to worry.
“Thanks, man,” I say.
Onyx rolls his eyes. “That sister of yours, she’s a piece of work.” I have to agree with him.
Ember lets out an angry screeching noise, twisting to bare her teeth at Onyx. The last threads of her composure break away, and she’s wild with grief and rage.
Onyx looks unimpressed, his eyes dull with pain. “Give it a rest, psycho.”
Across the clearing, Cedar and Lazuli support a bruised and bloody Hawthorne limping toward us. Crickett runs toward him, clutching their toddler between them as she embraces him. Despite his condition, Hawthorne kisses her back and even wraps an arm around her shoulders. Dahlia squeals and clenches his dirty, torn shirt in her tiny fists.
On the ground with a bandage pressed to his shoulder sprawls a vaguely familiar boy with black hair. He’s still a teenager. Kneeling, I eye his wounds.
“Get away from me,” he growls. Blood mattes his shirt.
“You don’t have to go back to Granite Ridge. Life doesn’t have to be like that,” I say, wishing someone had said the same to me much sooner.
“Piece of shit,” he spits, gasping as his muscles seize.
“If you ever decide you want to be free, there are other packs that treat their wolves with respect.”
The boy growls until I step away. Marigold runs her fingers up and down my inner forearm, the texture of her skin soothing me. “You can’t help someone that doesn’t want it.”
I know she’s right. But it still stings as I look over the injuries of my former packmates. Many of these people would have gladly killed me even when I was still heir of their pack.
My gaze sweeps to the unmoving bodies. It’s a pity, but after exhausting our supply of wolfsbane, we were left with little other choice in ourmethods of attack.
18. Answers and Aftermath
MARIGOLD
It takes hours to gather the bodies into trucks and return them and the remaining Granite Ridge wolves to their territory. They’ll have to handle their own burials. It’s a relief to get them out of our land.
Sienna stands alone, her face ashen, as she directs her wolves.
“Do you want to stay and help her?” I whisper to Jasper. After everything that has happened, a feeling like pity wells in my stomach.
“Absolutely not. Our pack needs us,” he answers immediately. Turning away from his former pack, he buries his face into my neck. The rise of his chest is comforting against my curves.
He’s quiet on the drive home.
The moon peeks over the treetops. Heath stands in the middle of the gathering, leaning on a crutch. His left leg is bound up tight.
